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May, 1851. 



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REJECTED ADDRESSES. 



" ' Punch's Apotheosis,' by G. Colnian, Junior, is too purely nonsensical to 
be extracted ; and both gives less pleasure to the reader, and does less justice 
to the ingenious author in whose name it stands, than any other of the poeti- 
cal imitations." — Edinburgh Review. 

" We have no conjectures to offer as to the anonymous author of this 
amusing little volume. He who is such a master of disguises, may easily be 
supposed to have been successful in concealing himself, and, with the power of 
assuming so many styles, is not likely to be detected by his own. We should 
guess, however, that he had not written a great deal in his own character — 
that his natural style was neither very lofty nor very grave — and that he 
rather indulges a partiality for puns and verbal pleasantries. We marvel why 
he has shut out Campbell and Rogers from his theatre of living poets, and 
confidently expect to have our curiosity in this and in all other particulars 
very speedily gratified, when the applause of the country shall induce him to 
take off his mask." — Edinburgh Review. 

"The happiest jeu d' 'esprit of its kind in our day, has its merits attested by 
the extraordinary words, 'Twentieth Edition.'" — Literary Gazette. 



REJECTED ADDRESSES: 



Wfyz Ntto arijtatrttm IJoetarttm* 



BY 



HORACE AND JAMES SMITH. 



" Fired that the House reject him ! — 'Sdeath, I '11 print it, 
And shame the Fools ! " — Pope. 



F ROM THE 

TWENTY-SECOND LONDON EDITION, 

CAREFULLY REVISED, WITH AN ORIGINAL PREFACE AND NOTES 

BY THE AUTHORS. 



BOSTON: 
TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS, 

MDCCC LI. 






in Exchange 
Brown University 
JUN 2° 1934 






boston : 

thurston, torry, & emerson, 

Printers, 31 Devonshire Street. 



PREFACE 



EIGHTEENTH EDITION. 



In the present publishing era, when books are like 
the multitudinous waves of the advancing sea, some 
of which make no impression whatever upon the 
sand, while the superficial traces left by others are 
destined to be perpetually obliterated by their succes- 
sors, almost as soon as they are found, the authors 
of the Rejected Addresses may well feel flattered, 
after a lapse of twenty years, and the sale of seven- 
teen large editions, in receiving an application to 
write a Preface to a new and more handsome im- 
pression. In diminution, however, of any overweening 
vanity which they might be disposed to indulge on 



VI PKEFACE. 

this occasion, they cannot but admit the truth of the 
remark made by a particularly candid and good- 
natured friend, who kindly reminded them, that if 
their little work has hitherto floated upon the stream 
of time, while so many others of much greater weight 
and value have sunk to rise no more, it has been 
solely indebted for its buoyancy to that specific levity 
which enables feathers, straws, and similar trifles, 
to defer their submersion, until they have become 
thoroughly saturated with the waters of oblivion, 
when they quickly meet the fate which they had 
long before merited. 

Our ingenuous and ingenious friend furthermore 
observed, that the demolition of Drury-Lane Theatre 
by fire, its reconstruction under the auspices of the 
celebrated Mr. Whitbread, the reward offered by the 
committee for an opening address, and the public 
recitation of a poem composed expressly for the 
occasion by Lord Byron, one of the most popular 
writers of the age, formed an extraordinary concur- 
rence of circumstances, which could not fail to insure 



PREFACE. Vll 

the success of the Rejected Addresses, while it has 
subsequently served to fix them in the memoiy of the 
public, so far at least as a poor immortality of twenty 
years can be said to have effected that object. In 
fact, continued our impartial and affectionate monitor, 
your little work owes its present obscure existence 
entirely to the accidents that have surrounded and 
embalmed it, — even as flies, and other worthless 
insects, may long survive their natural date of ex- 
tinction, if they chance to be preserved in amber, or 
any similar substance. 

The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare — 
"We wonder how the devil they got there ! 

With the natural affection of parents for the off- 
spring of their own brains, we ventured to hint that 
some portion of our success might perhaps be attrib- 
utable to the manner in which the different imitations 
were executed ; but our worthy friend protested that 
his sincere regard for us, as well as for the cause 
of truth, compelled him to reject our claim, and to 
pronounce that, when once the idea had been con- 



Vlll PREFACE. 

ceived, all the rest followed as a matter of course, 
and might have been executed by any other hands 
not less felicitously than by our own. 

Willingly leaving this matter to the decision of the 
public, since we cannot be umpires in our own cause, 
we proceed to detail such circumstances attending 
the writing and publication of our little work, as may 
literally meet the wishes of the present proprietor of 
the copyright, who has applied to us for a gossipping 
Preface. Were we disposed to be grave and didactic, 
which is as foreign to our mood as it was twenty 
years ago, we might draw the attention of the reader, 
in a fine sententious paragraph, to the trifles upon 
which the fate of empires, as well as a four-and- 
sixpenny volume of parodies, occasionally hangs in 
trembling balance. No sooner was the idea of our 
work conceived, than it was about to be abandoned 
in embryo, from the apprehension that we had no 
time to mature and bring it forth, as it was indispen- 
sable that it should be written, printed, and published 
by the opening of Drury-Lane Theatre, w T hich would 



PREFACE. IX 

only allow us an interval of six weeks, and we had 
both of us other avocations that precluded us from 
the full command of even that limited period. En- 
couraged, however, by the conviction that the thought 
was a good one, and by the hope of making a lucky 
hit, we set to work con amore, our very hurry not 
improbably enabling us to strike out at a heat what 
we might have failed to produce so well, had we 
possessed time enough to hammer it into more careful 
and elaborate form. 

Our first difficulty, that of selection, was by no 
means a light one. Some of our most eminent poets, 
such, for instance, as Rogers and Campbell, presented 
so much beauty, harmony, and proportion in their 
writings, both as to style and sentiment, that if we 
had attempted to caricature them, nobody would have 
recognised the likeness ; and if we had endeavored 
to give a servile copy of their manner, it would only 
have amounted, at best, to a tame and unamusing 
portrait, which it was not our object to present. Al- 
though fully aware that their names would, in the 



X PREFACE. 

theatrical phrase, have conferred great strength upon 
our bill, we were reluctantly compelled to forego 
them, and to confine ourselves to writers whose style 
and habit of thought, being more marked and pecu- 
liar, were more capable of exaggeration and distortion. 
To avoid politics and personality, to imitate the turn 
of mind, as well as the phraseology of our originals, 
and, at all events, to raise a harmless laugh, were our 
main objects : in the attainment of which united aims, 
we were sometimes hurried into extravagance, by 
attaching much more importance to the last than to 
the two first. In no instance were we thus betrayed 
into a greater injustice than in the case of Mr. Words- 
worth — the touching sentiment, profound wisdom, 
and copious harmony of whose loftier writings we left 
unnoticed, in the desire of burlesquing them ; while 
we pounced upon his popular ballads, and exerted 
ourselves to push their simplicity into puerility and 
silliness. With pride and pleasure do we now claim 
to be ranked among the most ardent admirers of this 
true poet ; and if he himself could see the state of 



PREFACE. XI 

his works, which are ever at our right hand, he would, 
perhaps, receive the manifest evidences they exhibit 
of constant reference, and delighted re-perusal, as 
some sort of amende honorable for the unfairness of 
which we were guilty, when we were less conversant 
with the higher inspirations of his muse. To Mr. 
Coleridge, and others of our originals, we must also 
do a tardy act of justice, by declaring that our bur- 
lesque of their peculiarities, has never blinded us to 
those beauties and talents which are beyond the reach 
of all ridicule. 

One of us had written a genuine Address for the 
occasion, which was sent to the Committee, and 
shared the fate it merited, in being rejected. To 
swell the bulk, or rather to diminish the tenuity of 
our little work, we added it to the Imitations ; and 
prefixing the initials of S. T. P. for the purpose of 
puzzling the critics, were not a little amused, in the 
sequel, by the many guesses and conjectures into 
which we had ensnared some of our readers. We 
could even enjoy the mysticism, qualified as it was 



Xll PREFACE. 

by the poor compliment, that our carefully written 
Address exhibited no " very prominent trait of absur- 
dity," when we saw it thus noticed in the Edinburgh 
Review for November, 1812. " An Address by S. T. P. 
we can make nothing of; and professing our ignorance 
of the author designated by these letters, we can only 
add, that the Address, though a little affected, and 
not very full of meaning, has no very prominent trait 
of absurdity, that we can detect ; and might have 
been adopted and spoken, so far as we can perceive, 
without any hazard of ridicule. In our simplicity we 
consider it as a very decent, mellifluous, occasional 
prologue ; and do not understand how it has found its 
way into its present company." 

Urged forward by hurry, and trusting to chance, 
two very bad coadjutors in any enterprise, we at 
length congratulated ourselves on having completed 
our task in time to have it printed and published by 
the opening of the theatre. But, alas ! our difficulties, 
so far from being surmounted, seemed only to be 
beginning. Strangers to the arcana of the bookseller's 



trad 



PREFACE. Xlll 



de, and unacquainted with their almost invincible 
objection to single volumes of low price, especially 
when tendered by writers who have acquired no pre- 
vious name, we little anticipated that they would 
refuse to publish our Rejected Addresses, even al- 
though we asked nothing for the copyright. Such, 
however, proved to be the case. Our manuscript was 
perused and returned to us by several of the most 
eminent publishers. Well do we remember betaking 
ourselves to one of the craft in Bond-street, whom we 
found in a back parlor, with his gouty leg propped 
upon a cushion, in spite of which warning he diluted 
his luncheon with frequent glasses of Madeira. " What 
have you already written ? " was his first question, an 
interrogatory to which we had been subjected in 
almost every instance. " Nothing by which we can 
be known." " Then I am afraid to undertake the 
publication." We presumed timidly to suggest that 
every writer must have a beginning, and that to refuse 
to publish for him until he had acquired a name, was 
to imitate the sapient mother who cautioned her son 



XIV PREFACE. 



against going into the water until he could swim. 
" An old joke — a regular Joe ! " exclaimed our 
companion, tossing off another bumper. " Still older 
than Joe Miller," was our reply ; " for, if we mistake 
not, it is the very first anecdote in the facetise of 
Hierocles." " Ha, sirs ! n resumed the bibliopolist, 
" you are learned, are you ? So, soh ! — Well, leave 
your manuscript with me ; I will look it over to-night, 
and give you an answer to-morrow." Punctual as the 
clock we presented ourselves at his door on the fol- 
lowing morning, when our papers were returned to us 
with the observation- — " These trifles are really not 
deficient in smartness ; they are well, vastly well for 
beginners ; but they will never do — never. They 
would not pay for advertising, and without it I should 
not sell fifty copies." 

This was discouraging enough. If the most ex- 
perienced publishers feared to be out of pocket by 
the work, it was manifest, a fortiori, that its writers 
ran a risk of being still more heavy losers, should 
they undertake the publication on their own account. 



PREFACE. XV 

We had no objection to raise a laugh at the expense 
of others ; but to do it at our own cost, uncertain as 
we were to what extent we might be involved, had 
never entered into our contemplation. In this dilemma, 
our Addresses, now in every sense 'rejected, might 
probably have never seen the light, had not some 
good angel whispered us to betake ourselves to Mr. 
John Miller, a dramatic publisher, then residing in 
Bow-street, Covent Garden. No sooner had this gen- 
tleman looked over our manuscript, than he imme- 
diately offered to take upon himself all the risk of 
publication, and to give us half the profits, should 
there be any; a liberal proposition, with which we 
gladly closed. So rapid and decided was its success, 
at which none were more unfeignedly astonished than 
its authors, that Mr. Miller advised us to collect some 
Imitations of Horace, which had appeared anony- 
mously in the Monthly Mirror, offering to publish 
them upon the same terms. We did so accordingly ; 
and as new editions of the Rejected Addresses were 
called for in quick succession, we were shortly enabled 



XVI PREFACE. 



to sell our half copyright in the two works to Mr. 
Miller, for one thousand pounds ! ! We have entered 
into this unimportant detail, not to gratify any vanity 
of our own, but to encourage such literary beginners 
as may be placed in similar circumstances ; as well 
as to impress upon publishers the propriety of giving 
more consideration to the possible merit of the works 
submitted to them, than to the mere magic of a 
name. 

To the credit of the genus irrilabile be it recorded, 
that not one of those whom we had parodied or bur- 
lesqued ever betrayed the least soreness on the 
occasion, or refused to join in the laugh that we had 
occasioned. With most of them we subsequently 
formed acquaintanceship ; while some honored us 
with an intimacy which still continues, where it has 
not been severed by the rude hand of Death. Alas ! 
it is painful to reflect, that of the twelve writers whom 
we presumed to imitate, 1i\e are now no more ; the 
list of the deceased being unhappily swelled by the 
most illustrious of all, the darum et venerabile nomen 



PREFACE. XV11 

of Sir Walter Scott ! From that distinguished writer, 
whose transcendent talents were only to be equalled 
by his virtues and his amiability, we received favors 
and notice, both public and private, which it will be 
difficult to forget, because we had riot the smallest 
claim upon his kindness. " I certainly must have 
written this myself ! " said that fine-tempered man to 
one of the authors, pointing to the description of the 
Fire, " although I forget upon what occasion." Lydia 
White, a literary lady who was prone to feed the 
lions of the day, invited one of us to dinner ; but, 
recollecting afterwards that William Spencer formed 
one of the party, wrote to the latter to put him off; 
telling him that a man was to be at her table whom 
he " would not like to meet." " Pray who is this 
whom I should not like to meet ? " inquired the poet. 
" O ! " answered the lady, " one of those men who 
have made that shameful attack upon you ! " " The 
very man upon earth I should like to know ! " rejoined 
the lively and careless bard. The two individuals 
; accordingly met, and have continued fast friends ever 



XX111 PREFACE. 

since. Lord Byron, too, wrote thus to Mr. Murray 
from Italy — " Tell him we forgive him, were he 
twenty times our satirist." 

It may not be amiss to notice, in this place, one 
criticism of a Leicester clergyman, which may be 
pronounced unique : " I do not see why they should 
have been rejected," observed the matter-of-fact anno- 
tator ; " I think some of them very good ! " Upon 
the whole, few have been the instances, in the 
acrimonious history of literature, where a malicious 
pleasantry like the Rejected Addresses — which the 
parties ridiculed might well consider more annoying 
than a direct satire — instead of being met by queru- 
lous bitterness or petulant retaliation, has procured for 
its authors the acquaintance, or conciliated the good- 
will, of those whom they had the most audaciously 
burlesqued. 

In commenting on a work, however trifling, which 
has survived the lapse of twenty years, an author may 
almost claim the privileged garrulity of age ; yet even 
in a professedly gossipping Preface, we begin to fear 



PREFACE. XIX 

that we are exceeding our commission, and abusing 
the patience of the reader. If we are doing so, we 
might urge extenuating circumstances, which will 
explain, though they may not excuse, our difTuseness. 
To one of us the totally unexpected success of this 
little work proved an important event, since it mainly 
decided him, some years afterwards, to embark in 
that literary career which the continued favor of the 
novel-reading world has rendered both pleasant and 
profitable to him. This is the first, as it will probably 
be the last, occasion upon which we shall ever intrude 
ourselves personally on the public notice ; and we 
trust that our now doing so will stand excused by the 
reasons we have adduced. 
London, March, 1833. 

This book was originally published in October, 1812. 






THE REJECTED ADDRESSES. 



" The rebuilding of the theatre at Drury Lane, after its late destruction by- 
fire, was managed by a certain committee^ to whom also was confided, amidst 
other minor and mechanical arrangements, the care of procuring an occasional 
prologue. This committee, if it was wisely selected for its other duties, could 
not, we may well suppose, be greatly qualified for this $ and accordingly with 
due modesty, and in the true spirit of tradesmen, they advertised for the best 
poetical Address, to be sealed and delivered within a certain number of days, 
folded and directed in a given form ; in short, like the tender for a public 
contract. 

" The result has been just what we should have expected from so auspicious 
a beginning, in every respect but two : one is, that, to our great astonishment, 
three-and-forty persons were found to contend for this prize ; and the other, 
that amongst these are to be found two or three persons who appear to have 
some share of taste and genius. 

"The three-and-forty Addresses, however, properly folded, sealed, marked, 
and directed, reached the committee. We can easily imagine the modest dis- 
may with which they viewed their increasing hoards ; they began to think that 
it would have been easier and safer to trust to the reputation and taste of Mr. 
Scott or Mr. Southey, Mr. Campbell or Mr. Rogers, than to have pledged 
themselves to the task of making a choice and selection in a matter of which 
what little they knew was worse than nothing. The builders of the lofty pile 
were totally at a loss to know how to dispose of the builders of the lofty rhyme : 
the latter all spoke different languages, and all, to the former, equally unintel- 



XX11 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

ligible. The committee were alike confounded with the number of Addresses 
and their own debates. No such confusion of tongues had accompanied any 
erection since the building of Babel ; nor could matters have been set to rights 
(unless by a miracle), if the convenient though not very candid plan of reject- 
ing all the Addresses had not occurred, as a ' mezzotermine ' in which the 
whole committee might safely agree ; and the Addresses were rejected accord- 
ingly. We do not think that they deserved, in true poetical justice, a better 
fate : not one was excellent, two or three only were tolerable, and the rest so 
execrable that we wonder this committee of taste did not agree upon one of 
them. But as the several bards were induced to expend their precious time and 
more precious paper, by the implied engagement on the part of the committee 
that the best bidder should have the contract, we think they have a right 
to protest against the injustice of this wholesale rejection. It was about as 
fair as it would be in Messrs. Bish and Carter, after they had disposed of all 
their lottery tickets, to acquaint the holders that there should be no drawing, 
but that they intended to transfer the 20,000Z. prize to an acquaintance of their 
own. The committee, we readily admit, made an absurd engagement 5 but 
surely they were bound to keep it. 

" In the dilemma to which that learned body was reduced by the rejection of 
all the biddings, they put themselves under the care of Lord Byron, who pre- 
scribed in their case a composition which bears the honour of his name." 

From the Quarterly Review. 



ORIGINAL PREFACE. 



On the 14th of August, 1812, the following adver- 
tisement appeared in most of the daily papers : — 

" Rebuilding of Drury-Lane Theatre. 

" The Committee are desirous of promoting a free 
and fair competition for an Address to be spoken upon 
the opening of the Theatre, which will take place on 
the 10th of October next. They have, therefore, 
thought fit to announce to the public, that they will 
be glad to receive any such compositions, addressed 
to their Secretary, at the Treasury-office, in Drury 
Lane, on or before the 10th of September, sealed up, 
with a distinguishing word, number, or motto, on the 
cover, corresponding with the inscription on a sepa- 



XXIV PREFACE. 

rate sealed paper, containing the name of the author, 
which will not be opened unless containing the name 
of the successful candidate." 

Upon the propriety of this plan, men's minds were, 
as they usually are upon matters of moment, much 
divided. Some thought it a fair promise of the future 
intention of the Committee to abolish that phalanx of 
authors who usurp the stage, to the exclusion of a 
large assortment of dramatic talent blushing unseen 
in the back-ground ; while others contended, that the 
scheme would prevent men of real eminence from 
descending into an amphitheatre in which all Grub- 
street (that is to say, all London and Westminster) 
would be arrayed against them. The event has 
proved both parties to be in a degree right, and in a 
degree wrong. One hundred and twelve Addresses 
have been sent in, each sealed and signed, and 
mottoed, " as per order," some written by men of 
great, some by men of little, and some by men of 
no talent. 

Many of the public prints have censured the taste 
of the Committee, in thus contracting for Addresses 



PREFACE. XXV 

as they would for nails — by the gross ; but it is sur- 
prising that none should have censured their temerity. 
One hundred and eleven of the Addresses must, of 
course, be unsuccessful : to each of the authors, thus 
infallibly classed with the genus irrit'abih, it would be 
very hard to deny six stanch friends, who consider his 
the best of all possible Addresses, and whose tongues 
will be as ready to laud him, as to hiss his adversary. 
These, with the potent aid of the bard himself, make 
seven foes per address ; and thus will be created 
seven hundred and seventy-seven implacable auditors, 
prepared to condemn the strains of Apollo himself — a 
band of adversaries which no prudent manager would 
think of exasperating. 

But, leaving the Committee to encounter the respon- 
sibility they have incurred, the public have at least, 
to thank them for ascertaining and establishing one 
point, which might otherwise have admitted of con- 
troversy. When it is considered that many amateur 
writers have been discouraged from becoming com- 
petitors, and that few, if any, of the professional 
authors can afford to write for nothing, and, of course, 



XXVI PREFACE. 

have not been candidates for the honorary prize at 
Drury Lane, we may confidently pronounce that, as 
far as regards number, the present is undoubtedly the 
Augustan age of English poetry. Whether or not 
this distinction will be extended to the quality of its 
productions, must be decided at the tribunal of pos- 
terity ; though the natural anxiety of our authors on 
this score ought to be considerably diminished when 
they reflect how few will, in all probability, be had up 
for judgment. 

It is not necessary for the Editor to mention the 
manner in which he became possessed of this " fair 
sample of the present state of poetry in Great Britain." 
It was his first intention to publish the whole ; but a 
little reflection convinced him that, by so doing, he 
might depress the good, without elevating the bad. 
He has therefore culled what had the appearance of 
flowers, from what possessed the reality of weeds, 
and is extremely sorry that, in so doing, he has 
diminished his collection to twenty -one. Those which 
he has rejected may possibly make their appearance 
in a separate volume, or they may be admitted as 



PREFACE. XXV11 

volunteers in the files of some of the newspapers ; or, 
at all events, they are sure of being received among 
the awkward squad of the Magazines. In general, 
they bear a close resemblance to each other ; thirty 
of them contain extravagant compliments to the im- 
mortal Wellington and the indefatigable Whitbread ; 
and, as the last-mentioned gentleman is said to dislike 
praise in the exact proportion in which he deserves 
it, these laudatory writers have probably been only 
building a wall against which they might run their 
own heads. 

The Editor here begs leave to advance a few words 
in behalf of that useful and much-abused bird the 
Phoenix ; and in so doing, he is biassed by no par- 
tiality, as he assures the reader he not only never saw 
one, but (mirabile dictu /) never caged one, in a 
simile, in the whole course of his life. Not less than 
sixty-nine of the competitors have invoked the aid of 
this native of Arabia ; but as, from their manner of 
using him after they had caught him, he does not by 
any means appear to have been a native of Arabia 
Felix, the Editor has left the proprietors to treat with 



XXV111 PREFACE. 

Mr. Polito, and refused to receive this vara avis, or 
black swan, into the present collection. One excep- 
tion occurs, in which the admirable treatment of this 
feathered incombustible entitles the author to great 
praise : that Address has been preserved, and in the 
ensuing pages takes the lead, to which its dignity 
entitles it. 

Perhaps the reason why several of the subjoined 
productions of the Mus^ Londinenses have failed of 
selection, may be discovered in their being penned in 
a metre unusual upon occasions of this sort, and in 
their not being written with that attention to stage 
effect, the want of which, like want of manners in the 
concerns of life, is more prejudicial than a deficiency 
of talent. There is an art of writing for the Theatre, 
technically called touch and go, which is indispensable 
when we consider the small quantum of patience 
which so motley an assemblage as a London audience 
can be expected to afford. All the contributors have 
been very exact in sending their initials and mottoes. 
Those belonging to the present collection have been 
carefully preserved, and each has been affixed to its 






PREFACE. XXIX 



respective poem. The letters that accompanied the 
Addresses having been honourably destroyed un- 
opened, it is impossible to state the real authors with 
any certainty ; but the ingenious reader, after com- 
paring the initials with the motto, and both with the 
poem, may form his own conclusions. 

The Editor does not anticipate any disapprobation 
from thus giving publicity to a small portion of the 
Rejected Addresses ; for unless he is widely mistaken 
in assigning the respective authors, the fame of each 
individual is established on much too firm a basis to 
be shaken by so trifling and evanescent a publication 
as the present : 

neque ego illi detrahere ausim 



Hserentem capiti multa cum laude coronam. 

Of the numerous pieces already sent to the Com- 
mittee for performance, he has only availed himself 
of three vocal Travesties, which he has selected, not 
for their merit, but simply for their brevity. Above 
one hundred spectacles, melodramas, operas, and 
pantomimes, have been transmitted, besides the two 
first acts of one legitimate comedy. Some of these 



XXX PREFACE. 

evince considerable smartness of manual dialogue, 
and several brilliant repartees of chairs, tables, and 
other inanimate wits ; but the authors seem to have 
forgotten that in the new Drury Lane the audience 
can hear as well as see. Of late our theatres have 
been so constructed, that John Bull has been com- 
pelled to have very long ears, or none at all ; to keep 
them dangling about his skull like discarded servants, 
while his eyes were gazing at pieballs and elephants, 
or else to stretch them out to an asinine length to 
catch the congenial sound of braying trumpets. An 
auricular revolution is, we trust, about to take place ; 
and as many people have been much puzzled to 
define the meaning of the new era, of which we have 
heard so much, we venture to pronounce, that as far 
as regards Drury-Lane Theatre, the new era means 
the reign of ears. If the past affords any pledge for 
the future, we may confidently expect from the Com- 
mittee of that House everything that can be accom- 
plished by the union of taste and assiduity. 



CONTENTS. 

♦ 

PAGE 

i. loyal effusion. by w. t. f s3 

ii. the baby's debut. by w. w 39 

iii. an address without a phgenix. by s. t. p. . 46 

iv. cui bono? by lord b 49 

v. hampshire farmer's address. by w. c. . . 62 

vi. the living lustres. by t. m 69 

vii. the rebuilding. by r. s 74 

viii. drury's dirge, by l. m .89 

ix. a tale of drury lane. by w. s 94 

x. Johnson's ghost 106 

XI. THE BEAUTIFUL INCENDIARY. BY THE HON. W. S. 114 

XII. FIRE AND ALE. BY M. G. L 122 

: XIII. PLAYHOUSE MUSINGS. BY S. T. C 128 



XXX11 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

xiv. drury's hustings 134 

XV. ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS. BY DR. B 138 

XVI. THEATRICAL ALARM-BELL. BY M. P 152 

XVII. THE THEATRE. BY THE REV. G. C L59 

XVIII. MACBETH TRAVESTIE. BY M. M 172 

XIX. STRANGER TRAVESTIE. BY DITTO 176 

XX. GEORGE BARNWELL TRAVESTIE. BY DITTO. . . 180 

XXI. PUNCH ? S APOTHEOSIS. BY T. H 185 



REJECTED ADDRESSES. 



LOYAL EFFUSION. 

BY W. T. r.i 
— ♦ — 

' Quicquid dicunt, laudo : id rursuni si negant, 
Laudo id quo que." Terence. 



Hail, glorious edifice, stupendous work ! 
God bless the Regent and the Duke of York ! 
Ye Muses ! by whose aid I cried down Fox, 
Grant me in Drury Lane a private box, 

1 William Thomas Fitzgerald. The annotator's first per- 
sonal knowledge of this gentleman was at Harry Greville's 
Pic-Nic Theatre, in Tottenham-street, where he personated 
Zanga in a wig too small for his head. The second time of 
seeing him was at the table of old Lord Dudley, who familiarly 
called Jiim Fitz, but forgot to name him in his will. The 
3 



34 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Where I may loll, cry bravo ! and profess 
The boundless powers of England's glorious press ; 
While Afric's sons exclaim, from shore to shore, 
" Quashee ma boo ! " — the slave-trade is no more ! 

In fair Arabia (happy once, now stony, 
Since ruined by that arch apostate Boney), 
A phoenix late was caught : the Arab host 
Long ponder'd — part would boil it, part would roast ; 

Earl's son (recently deceased), however, liberally supplied the 
omission by a donation of five thousand pounds. The third 
and last time of encountering him was -at an anniversary din- 
ner of the Literary Fund, at the Freemason's Tavern. Both 
parties, as two of the stewards, met their brethren in a small 
room about half an hour before dinner. The lampooner, out 
of delicacy, kept aloof from the poet. The latter, however, 
made up to him, when the following dialogue to.k jlace : 

Fitzgerald (with good humor). "Mr. , I mean to 

recite after di iner." 

Mr. . "Do you?" 

Fitzgerald. "Yes; you'll have more of l God bless the 
Regent and the Duke of York ! ' " 

The whole of this imitation, after a lapse of twenty years, 
appears to the Authors too personal and sarcastic ; but they 
may shelter themselves under a very broad mantle : 

" Let hoarse Fitzgerald bawl 
His creaking couplets in a tavern-hall." — Byron. 



LOYAL EFFUSION. 35 

But while they ponder, up the pot-lid flies, 

Fledged, beak'd, and claw'd, alive they see him rise 

To heaven, and caw defiance in the skies. 

So Drury, first in roasting flames consumed, 

Then by old renters to hot water doom'd, 

By Wyatt's trowel patted, plump and sleek, 

Soars without wings, and caws without a beak. 

Gallia's stern despot shall in vain advance 1 

From Paris, the metropolis of France ; 

By this day month the monster shall not gain 

A foot of land in Portugal or Spain. 

See Wellington in Salamanca's field 

Forces his favourite general to yield, 

Breaks through his lines, and leaves his boasted 

Marmont 
Expiring on the plain without his arm on ; 



1 " The first piece, under the name of the loyal Mr. Fitzger- 
ald, though as good we suppose as the original, is not very 
interesting. Whether it be very like Mr. Fitzgerald or not, 
however, it must be allowed that the vulgarity, servility, and 
gross absurdity of the newspaper scribblers is well rendered in 
the following lines." — Edinburgh Review. 



35 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Madrid he enters at the cannon's mouth, 
And then the villages still further south. 
Base Buonaparte, fill'd with deadly ire, 
Sets, one by one, our playhouses on fire. 
Some years ago he pounced with deadly glee on 
The Opera House, then burnt down the Pantheon ; 
Nay, still unsated, in a coat of flames, 
Next at Milbank he cross'd the river Thames ; 
Thy hatch, O Halfpenny ! * pass'd in a trice, 
BoiPd some black pitch, and burnt down Astley's twice ; 
Then buzzing on through ether with a wild hum, 
Turn'd to the left hand, fronting the Asylum, 
And burnt the Royal Circus in a hurry — 
(T was calPd the Circus then, but now the Surrey). 
Who burnt (confound his soul !) the houses twain 
Of Covent Garden and of Drury Lane ? 

1 In plain English, the Halfpenny-hatch, then a footway 
through fields ; but now, as the same bard sing elsewhere — 

" St. George's Fields are fields no more, 
The trowel supersedes the plough •, 
Swamps, huge and inundate of yore, 
Are changed to civic villas now." 



LOYAL EFFUSION. 37 

Who, while the British squadron lay off Cork, 
(God bless the Regent and the Duke of York !) 
With a foul earthquake ravaged the Caraccas, 
And raised the price of dry goods and tobaccos ? 
Who makes the quartern loaf and Luddites rise ? 
Who fills the butchers' shops with large blue flies ? 
Who thought in flames St. James's court to pinch ? 
Who burnt the wardrobe of poor Lady Finch ? — 
Why he, who, forging for this isle a yoke, 
Reminds me of a line I lately spoke, 
" The tree of freedom is the British oak." 

Bless every man possess'd of aught to give ; 
Long may Long Tilney Wellesley Long Pole live ; 
God bless the Army, bless their coats of scarlet, 
God bless the Navy, bless the Princess Charlotte ; 
God bless the guards, though worsted Gallia scoff, 
God bless their pig-tails, though they 're now cut off; 
And, oh ! in Downing Street should Old Nick revel, 
England's prime minister, then bless the devil ! 



Fitzgerald actually sent in an address to the committee on 
the 31st of August, 1812. It was published among the other 



38 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

genuine Rejected Addresses, in one volume, in that year. The 
following is an extract : — 

" The troubled shade of Garrick, hovering near, 
Dropt on the burning pile a pitying tear." 

"What a pity that, like Sterne's recording angel, it did not 
succeed in blotting the fire out for ever ! That failing, why not 
adopt Gulliver's remedy? 






THE BABY'S DEBUT. 

BY W. W.i 



' Thy lisping prattle and thy mincing gait, 
All thy false mimic fooleries I hate *, 
For thou art Folly's counterfeit, and she 
Who is right foolish hath the better plea : 
Nature's true Idiot I prefer to thee." 

Cumberland. 



[Spoken in the character of Nancy Lake, a girl eight years of 
age, who is draivn upon the stage in a child's chaise by 
Samuel Hughes, her uncle's porter.] 

My brother Jack was nine in May, 2 
And I was eight on New-year's-day ; 
So in Kate Wilson's shop 

1 William Wordsworth. 

2 Jack and Nancy, as it was afterwards remarked to the 
Authors, are here made to come into the world at periods not 
sufficiently remote. The writers were then bachelors. One of 



40 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Papa (he 's my papa and Jack's) 
Bought me, last week, a doll of wax, 
And brother Jack a top. 

Jack 's in the pouts, and this it is, — 
He thinks mine came to more than his ; 

So to my drawer he goes, 
Takes out the doll, and, O, my stars ! 
He pokes her head between the bars, 

And melts off half her nose ! 

Quite cross, a bit of string I beg, 
And tie it to his peg-top's peg, 

And bang, with might and main, 

them, unfortunately, still continues so, as he has thus record- 
ed in his niece's album : 

" Should I seek Hymen's tie, 

As a poet I die — 
Ye Benedicks, mourn my distresses ! 

For what little fame 

Is annexed to my name 
Is derived from Rejected Addresses." 

The blunder, notwithstanding, remains unrectified. The 
reader of poetry is always dissatisfied with emendations : they 
sound discordantly upon the ear, like a modern song, by 
Bishop or Braham, introduced in Love in a Village. 






THE BABY'S DEBUT. 41 

Its head against the parlour-door : 
Off flies the head, and hits the floor, 
And breaks a window-pane. 

This made him cry with rage and spite : 
Well, let him cry, it serves him right. 

A pretty thing, forsooth ! 
If he 's to melt, all scalding hot, 
Half my doll's nose, and I am not 

To draw his peg-top's tooth ! 

Aunt Hannah heard the window break, 
And cried, u O naughty Nancy Lake, 

Thus to distress your aunt : 
No Drury-Lane for you to-day ! " 
And while papa said, " Pooh, she may ! " 

Mamma said, " No, she sha'n't ! " 

Well, after many a sad reproach, 
They got into a hackney coach, 
And trotted down the street, 



42 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

I saw them go : one horse was blind, 
The tails of both hung down behind, 
Their shoes were on their feet. 

The chaise in which poor brother Bill 
Used to be drawn to Pentonville, 

Stood in the lumber-room : 
I wiped the dust from off the top, 
While Molly mopp'd it with a mop, 

And brushed it with a broom. 

My uncle's porter, Samuel Hughes, 
Came in at six to black the shoes, 

(I always talk to Sam :) 
So what does he, but takes, and drags 
Me in the chaise along the flags, 

And leaves me where I am. 

My father's walls are made of brick, 
But not so tall and not so thick 
As these ; and, goodness me ! 



the baby's debut. 43 

My father's beams are made of wood, 
But never, never half so good 
As those that now I see. • 

What a large floor ! 't is like a town ! 
The carpet, when they lay it down, 

Won't hide it, I '11 be bound ; 
And there 's a row of lamps ! — my eye ! 
How they do blaze ! I wonder why 

They keep them on the ground. 

At first I caught hold of the wing, 
And kept away ; but Mr. Thing- 

um bob, the prompter man, 
Gave with his hand my chaise a shove, 
And said, " Go on, my pretty love ; 

" Speak to 'em, little Nan. 

" You 've only got to curtsy, whisp- 
er, hold your chin up, laugh, and lisp, 
And then you 're sure to take : 



44 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

I Ve known the day when brats, not quite 
Thirteen, got fifty pounds a night ; x 
Then why not Nancy Lake ? " 

But while I 'm speaking, where 's papa ? 

And where 's my aunt ? and where 's mamma ? 

Where 's Jack ? O, there they sit ! 
They smile, they nod ; I '11 go my ways, 
And order round poor Billy's chaise, 

To join them in the pit. 

1 This alludes to the young Betty mania. The writer was in 
the stage-box at the height of this young gentleman's popu- 
larity. One of the other occupants offered, in a loud voice, 
to prove that young Betty did not understand Shakespeare. 
" Silence ! " was the cry ; but he still proceeded. " Turn him 
out!" was the next ejaculation. He still vociferated "He 
does not understand Shakespeare j " and was consequently 
shouldered into the lobby. "I'll prove it to you," said the 
critic to the door-keeper. "Prove what, sir?" "That he 
does not understand Shakespeare." This was Moli>re's house- 
maid with a vengeance ! 

Young Betty may now be seen walking about town — a 
portly personage, aged about forty — clad in a furred and 
frogged surtout j probably muttering to himself (as he has 
been at college), " nrihi proeteritos ! " &c. 



the baby's debut. 45 

And now, good gentlefolks, I go 
To join mamma, and see the show ; 

So, bidding you adieu, 
I curtsy, like a pretty miss, 
And if you '11 blow to me a kiss, 

I '11 blow a kiss to you. 

[Blows a kiss, and exit. 



u The author does not, in this instance, attempt to copy any 
of the higher attributes of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry ; but has 
succeeded perfectly in the imitation of his mawkish affecta- 
tions of childish simplicity and nursery stammering. "We hope 
it will make him ashamed of his Alice Fell, and the greater 
part of his last volumes — of which it is by no means a 
parody, but a very fair, and indeed we think a nattering, 
imitation." — Edinburgh Review. 



AN ADDRESS 
WITHOUT A PHCENIX. 

BY S. T. P.i 




" This was looked for at your hand, and this was balked." 

What you Will. 
♦ 

What stately vision mocks my waking sense ? 

Hence, dear delusion, sweet enchantment, hence ! 

Ha ! is it real ? — can my doubts be vain ? 

It is, it is, and Drury lives again ! 

Around each grateful veteran attends, 

Eager to rush and gratulate his friends, 

Friends whose kind looks, retraced with proud delight, 

Endear the past, and make the future bright : 

Yes, generous patrons, your returning smile 

Blesses our toils, and consecrates our pile. 



1 For an account of this anonymous gentleman, see the 
Preface. 



AN ADDRESS WITHOUT A PHCENIX. 47 

When last we met, Fate's unrelenting hand 
Already grasped the devastating brand ; 
Slow crept the silent flame, ensnared its prize, 
Then burst resistless to the astonished skies. 
The glowing walls, dirobed of scenic pride, 
In trembling conflict stemmed the burning tide, 
Till crackling, blazing, rocking to its fall, 
Down rushed the thundering roof, and buried all ! 



Where late the sister Muses sweetly sung, 
And raptured thousands on their music hung, 
Where Wit and Wisdom shone, by Beauty graced, 
Sat lonely Silence, empress of the waste ; 
And still had reigned — but he, whose voice can raise 
More magic wonders than Amphion's lays, 
Bade jarring bands with friendly zeal engage 
To rear the prostrate glories of the stage. 
Up leaped the Muses at the potent spell, 
And Drury's genius saw his temple swell ; 
Worthy, we hope, the British Drama's cause, 
Worthy of British arts, and your applause. 



1 



43 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Guided by you, our earnest aims presume 
To renovate the Drama with the dome ; 
The scenes of Shakespeare and our bards of old, 
With due observance splendidly unfold, 
Yet raise and foster with parental hand 
The living talent of our native land. 
O ! may we still, to sense and nature true, 
Delight the many, nor offend the few. 
Though varying tastes our changeful Drama claim, 
Still be its moral tendency the same, 
To win by precept, by example warn, 
To brand the front of Vice with pointed scorn, 
And Virtue's smiling brows with votive wreaths adorn. 



CUI BONO? 

BY LORD B.i 



I. 

Sated with home, of wife, of children tired, 
The restless soul is driven abroad to roam ; 2 

1 Lord Byron. 

2 This would seem to show that poet and prophet are synony- 
mous, the noble bard having afterwards returned to England, 
and again quitted it, under domestic circumstances painfully 
notorious. His good-humored forgiveness of the Authors has 
already been alluded to in the preface. Nothing of this illus- 
trious poet, however trivial, can be otherwise than interesting. 
"We knew him well." At Mr. Murray's dinner-table the 
annotator met him and Sir John Malcolm. Lord Byron talked 
of intending to travel in Persia. u What must I do when I 
set off? " said he to Sir John. " Cut off your buttons ! " 
"My buttons! wdiat, these metal ones?" "Yes; the Per- 
sians are in the main very honest fellows ; but if you go thus 
bedizened, you will infallibly be murdered for your buttons." 
At a dinner at Monk Lewis's chambers in the Albany, Lord 

4 



50 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Sated abroad, all seen, yet nought admired, 
The restless soul is driven to ramble home ; 

BjTon expressed to the writer his determination not to go there 
again, adding, u I never will dine with a middle-aged man 
who fills up his table with young ensigns, and has looking- 
glass panels to his book-cases." Lord Byron, when one of 
the Drury-lane Committee of Management, challenged the 
writer to sing alternately (like the swains in Virgil) the praises 
of Mrs. Mardyn, the actress, who, by the bye, was hissed off 
the stage for an imputed intimacy, of which she was quite 
innocent. 

The contest ran as follows : 

" Wake, muse of fire, your ardent lyre, 

Pour forth your amorous ditty, 
But first profound, in duty bound, 

Applaud the new committee 5 
Then scenic art from Thespis' cart 

All jaded nags discarding, 
To London drove this queen of love, 

Enchanting Blips. Mardyn. 

" Though tides of love around her rove, 

I fear she '11 choose Pactolus — 
In that bright surge bards ne'er immerge, 

So I must e'en swim solus. 
1 Out, out, alas ! ' ill-fated gas, 

That shin'st round Covent Garden, 
Thy ray how fiat, compared with that 

From eye of Mrs. Mardyn ! " 

And so on. The reader has, no doubt, already discovered 
u which is the justice, and which is the thief." 

Lord Byron at that time wore a very narrow cravat of white 
sarsnet, with the shirt-collar falling over it j a black coat and 



CUI BONO ? 51 

Sated with both, beneath new Drury's dome 
The fiend Ennui awhile consents to pine, 
There growls, and curses, like a deadly Gnome, 
Scorning to view fantastic Columbine, 
Viewing with scorn and hate the nonsense of the Nine. 

waistcoat, and very broad white trousers, to hide his lame 
foot — these were of Russia duck in the morning, and jean in 
the evening. His watch-chain had a number of small gold 
seals appended to it, and was looped up to a button of his 
waistcoat. His face was void of colour ; he wore no whiskers. 
His eyes were grey, fringed with long black lashes j and his 
air was imposing, but rather supercilious. He undervalued 
David Hume ) denying his claim to genius on account of his 
bulk, and calling him, from the heroic epistle, 

" The fattest hog in Epicurus' sty." 

One of this extraordinary man's allegations was, that " fat is 
an oily dropsy." To stave off its visitation, he frequently 
chewed tobacco in lieu of dinner, alleging that it absorbed the 
gastric juice of the stomach, and prevented hunger. " Pass 
your hand down my side," said his lordship to the writer ; 
" can you count my ribs ? " " Every one of them." "lam 

delighted to hear you say so. I called last week on Lady ■ 

'Ah, Lord Byron,' said she, ' how fat you grow!' But you 

know Lady is fond of saying spiteful things ! " Let 

this gossip be summed up with the words of Lord Chesterfield, 
in his character of Bolingbroke : " Upon the whole, on a 



52 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

II. 

Ye reckless dupes, who hither wend your way 
To gaze on puppets in a painted dome, 
Pursuing pastimes glittering to betray, 
Like falling stars in life's eternal gloom, 
What seek ye here ? Joy's evanescent gloom ? 
Woe 's me ! the brightest wreaths she ever gave 
Are but as flowers that decorate a tomb. 

survey of this extraordinary character, what can we say, but 

Alas, poor human nature ! ' " 

His favourite Pope's description of man is applicable to 

Byron individually : 

" Chaos of thought and passion all confused, 
Still by himself abused or disabused ; 
Created part to rise and part to fall, 
Great lord of all things, yet a slave to all ; 
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled — 
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world." 

The writer never heard him allude to his deformed foot 
except upon one occasion, when, entering the green-room of 
Drury-lane, he found Lord Byron alone, the younger Byrne 
and Miss Smith the dancer having just left him, after an 
angry conference about a pas seul. " Had you been here a 
minute sooner," said Lord B., "you would have heard a 
question about dancing referred to me ; — me ! (looking mourn- 
fully downward) whom fate from my birth has prohibited from 
raking a single step." 



CUI BONO ? 53 

Man's heart, the mournful urn o'er which they wave, 
Is sacred to despair, its pedestal the grave. 

in. 
Has life so little store of real woes, 
That here ye wend to taste fictitious grief ? 
Or is it that from truth such anguish flows, 
Ye court the lying drama for relief ? 
Long shall ye find the pang, the respite brief : 
Or if one tolerable page appears 
In folly's volume, 'tis the actor's leaf, 
Who dries his own by drawing others' tears, 
And, raising present mirth, makes glad his future years. 

IV. 

Albeit, how like young Betty doth he flee ! 
Light as the mote that daunceth in the beam, 
He liveth only in man's present e'e, 
His life a flash, his memory a dream, 
Oblivious down he drops in Lethe's stream. 
Yet what are they, the learned and the great ? 
Awhile of longer wonderment the theme ! 



54 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Who shall presume to prophesy their date, 
Where nought is certain, save the uncertainty of fate ? 

v. 

This goodly pile, upheaved by Wyatt's toil, 
Perchance than Holland's edifice l more fleet, 
Again red Lemnos' artisan may spoil ; 
The fire-alarm and midnight drum may beat, 

1 " Holland's edifice." The late theatre was built by Hol- 
land the architect. The writer visited it on the night of its 
opening. The performances were Macbeth and the Virgin 
Unmasked. Between the play and the farce, an excellent 
epilogue, written by George Column, was excellently spoken 
by Miss Farren. It referred to the iron curtain which was, 
in the event of fire, to be let down between the stage and the 
audience, and which accordingly descended, by way of experi- 
ment, leaving Miss Farren between the lamps and the curtain. 
The fair speaker informed the audience, that should the fire 
break out on the stage (where it usually originates), it would 
thus be kept from the spectators j adding, with great solem- 
nity — 

" No ! we assure our generous benefactors 
'T -will only burn the scenery and the actors ! " 

A tank of water was afterwards exhibited, in the course of the 
epilogue, in which a wherry was rowed by a real live man, 
the band playing — 

" And did you not hear of a jolly young waterman ? " 



CUI BONO ? 55 

And all be strewed ysmoking at your feet ! 
Start ye ? perchance Death's angel may be sent, 
Ere from the flaming temple ye retreat ; 

Miss Farren reciting — 

" Sit still, there 's nothing in it, 
We '11 undertake to drown you in a single minute." 

11 vain thought!" as Othello says. Notwithstanding the 
boast in the epilogue — 

" Blow, wind — come, rack, in ages yet unborn, 
Our castle's strength shall laugh a siege to scorn " — 

the theatre fell a victim to the flames within fifteen years 
from the prognostic ! These preparations against fire always 
presuppose presence of mind and promptness in those who 
are to put them into action. They remind one of the dialogue, 
in Morton's Speed the Plough, between Sir Abel Handy and 
his son Bob : 
" Bob. Zounds, the castle 's on fire ! 

Sir A. Yes. 

Bob. Where 's your patent liquid for extinguishing fire ? 

Sir A. It is not mixed. 

Bob. Then where 's your patent fire-escape ? 

Sir A. It is not fixed. 

Bob. You are never at a loss ? 

Sir A. Never. 

Bob. Then what do you mean to do ? 

Sir A. I don't know." 



56 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

And ye who met, on revel idlesse bent, 
May find, in pleasure's fane, your grave and monument. 

VI. 

Your debts mount high — ye plunge in deeper waste ; 
The tradesman duns — no warning voice ye hear ; 
The plaintiff sues — to public shows ye haste ; 
The bailiff threats — ye feel no idle fear. 
Who can arrest your prodigal career ? 
Who can keep down the levity of youth ? 
What sound can startle age's stubborn ear ? 
Who can redeem from wretchedness and ruth 
Men true to falsehood's voice, false to the voice of truth ? 

VII. 

To thee, blest saint ! who doffed thy skin to make 
The Smithfield rabble leap from theirs with joy, 
We dedicate the pile — arise ! awake ! — 
Knock down the Muses, wit and sense destroy, 
Clear our new stage from reason's dull alloy, 
Charm hobbling age, and tickle capering youth 
With cleaver, marrow-bone, and Tunbridge toy ; 



CUI BONO ? 57 

While, vibrating in unbelieving tooth, 1 
Harps twang in Drury's walls, and make her boards 
a booth. 

VIII. 

For what is Hamlet, but a hare in March ? 
And what is Brutus, but a croaking owl ? 
And what is Holla ? Cupid steeped in starch, 
Orlando's helmet in Augustin's cowl. 
Shakespeare, how true thine adage, " fair is foul !" 
To him whose soul is with fruition fraught, 
The song of Braham is an Irish howl, 
Thinking is but an idle waste of thought, 
And nought is every thing, and every thing is nought. 

IX. 

Sons of Parnassus ! whom I view above, 
Not laurel-crown' d, but clad in rusty black ; 
Not spurring Pegasus through Tempe's grove, 
But pacing Grub-street on a jaded hack ; 

1 A rather obscure mode of expression for Jews '-harp ; which 
some etymologists allege, by the way, to be a corruption of 
Jim's'-harp. No connexion, therefore, with King David. 



58 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

What reams of foolscap, while your brains ye rack, 
Ye mar to make again ! for sure, ere long, 
Condemn' d to tread the bard's time -sanction' d track, 
Ye all shall join the bailiff-haunted throng, 
And reproduce, in rags, the rags ye blot in song. 



So fares the follower in the Muses' train ; 
He toils to starve, and only lives in death ; 
We slight him, till our patronage is vain, 
Then round his skeleton a garland wreathe, 
And o'er his bones an empty requiem breathe — 
Oh ! with what tragic horror would he start, 
(Could he be conjured from the grave beneath) 
To find the stage again a Thespian cart, 
And elephants and colts down trampling Shakespeare's 
art. 

XI. 

Hence, pedant Nature ! with thy Grecian rules ! 
Centaurs (not fabulous) those rules efface ; 
Back, sister Muses, to your native schools ; 
Here booted grooms usurp Apollo's place, 



CUI BONO ? 59 

Hoofs shame the boards that Garrick used to grace, 
The play of limbs succeeds the play of wit, 
Man yields the drama to the Hou'yri'm race, 
His prompter spurs, his licenser the bit, 
The stage a stable-yard, a jocky-club the pit. 

XII. 

Is it for these ye rear this proud abode ? 
Is it for these your superstition seeks 
To build a temple worthy of a god, 
To laud a monkey, or to worship leeks ! 
Then be the stage, to recompense your freaks, 
A motely chaos, jumbling age and ranks, 
Where Punch, the lignum-vitse Eoscius, squeaks, 
And Wisdom weeps and Folly plays her pranks, 
And moody Madness laughs and hugs the chain he 
clanks. 



" The author has succeeded better in copying the moody 
and misanthropic sentiments of Childe Harold, than the ner- 
vous and impetuous diction in which his noble biographer 



60 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

has embodied them. The attempt, however, indicates very 
considerable power ) and the flow of the verse and the con- 
struction of the poetical period are imitated with no ordinar) r 
skill.* 7 — Edinburgh Review. 



SECRETARY OF THE MANAGING COMMITTEE OF 
DRURY-LANE PLAYHOUSE. 



Sir, 
To the gewgaw fetters of rhyme (invented by the 
monks to enslave the people) I have a rooted objec- 
tion. I have therefore written an address for your 
theatre in plain, homespun, yeoman's prose; in the 
doing whereof I hope I am swayed by nothing but 
an independent wish to open the eyes of this gulled 
people, to prevent a repetition of the dramatic ham- 
boozling they have hitherto laboured under. If you 
like what I have done, and mean to make use of 
it, I don't want any such aristocratic reward as a 
piece of plate with two griffins sprawling upon it, 
or a dog and a jackass fighting for a ha'p 'worth of 
gilt gingerbread, or any such Bartholomew-fair non- 
sense. All I ask is, that the door-keepers of your 
playhouse may take all the sets of my Register now 



62 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

on hand, and force every body who enters your doors 

to buy one, giving afterwards a debtor and creditor 

account of what they have received, post-paid, and 

in due course remitting me the money and unsold 

Registers, carriage-paid. 

I am, &c. 

W. C. 1 



IN THE CHARACTER OF 

A HAMPSHIRE FARMER. 



- " Rabida. qui concitus ira 



Implevit pariter ternis latratibus auras, 

Et sparsit Yirides spumis albentibus agros." — Ovid. 



Most thinking People, 
When persons address an audience from the stage, 
it is usual, either in words or gesture, to say, " Ladies 
and Gentlemen, your servant." If I were base 
enough, mean enough, paltry enough, and brute 
beast enough, to follow that fashion, I should tell 
two lies in a breath. In the first place, you are 

1 William Cobbett — now M. P. 



HAMPSHIRE FARMER'S ADDRESS. 63 

not Ladies and Gentlemen, but I hope something 
better, that is to say, honest men and women ; and 
in the next place, if you were ever so much ladies, 
and ever so much gentlemen, I am not, nor ever 
will be, your humble servant. You see me here, 
most thinking people, by mere chance. I have not 
been within the doors of a playhouse before for these 
ten years ; nor, till that abominable custom of taking 
money at the doors is discontinued, will I ever sanc- 
tion a theatre with my presence. The stage -door is 
the only gate of freedom in the whole edifice, and 
through that I made my way from Bagshaw's 1 in 
Brydges Street, to accost you. Look about you. 
Are you not all comfortable ? Nay, never slink, 
mun ; speak out if you are dissatisfied, and tell me 
so before I leave town. You are now, (thanks to 
Mr, Whitbrcad), got into a large, comfortable house. 
Not into a gimcrack palace ; not into a Solomon* s 
temple ; not into a frost-work of Brobdignag filigree ; 
but into a plain, honest, homely, industrious, whole- 

1 Bagshaw. At that time the publisher of Cobbett ? s 
Kegister. 



64 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

some, brown brick playhouse. You have been strug- 
gling for independence and elbow-room these three 
years ; and who gave it you ? Who helped you out 
of Lilliput ? Who routed you from a rat-hole, five 
inches by four, to perch you in a palace ? Again 
and again I answer, Mr. Whitbread. You might 
have sweltered in that place- with the Greek name 1 
till doomsday, and neither Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Can- 
ning, no, nor the Marquess Wellesley, would have 
turned a trowel to help you out ! Remember that. 
Never forget that. Read it to your children, and to 
your children's children ! And now, most thinking 
people, cast your eyes over my head to what the 
builder, (I beg his pardon, the architect,) calls the 
proscenium. No motto, no slang, no popish Latin, 
to keep the people in the dark. No veluti in spe- 
culum. Nothing in the dead languages, properly so 
called, for they ought to die, ay, and be damned 
to boot ! The Covent Garden manager tried that, 
and a pretty business he made of it ! When a man 

1 The old Lyceum Theatre, pulled down by Mr. Arnold. 
That since destroyed by fire was erected on its site. 



HAMPSHIRE FARMER'S ADDRESS. 65 

says veluti in speculum, he is called a man of letters. 
Very well, and is not a man who cries O. P. a man 
of letters too ? You ran your O. P. against his 
veluti in speculum, and pray which beat ? I pro- 
phesied that, though I never told any body. I take 
it for granted, that every intelligent man, woman, 
and child, to whom I address myself, has stood 
severally and respectively in Little Russell Street, 
and cast their, his, her, and its eyes on the outside 
of this building before they paid their money to view 
the inside. Look at the brick-work, English Audi- 
ence ! Look at the brick-work ! All plain and 
smooth like a quakers' meeting. None of your 
Egyptian pyramids, to entomb subscribers' capitals. 
No overgrown colonnades of stone, like an alder- 
man's gouty legs in white cotton stockings, fit only 
to use as rammers for paving Tottenham Court Road. 
This house is neither after the model of a temple in 
Athens, no, nor a temple in Moorfields, but it is built 
to act English plays in ; and, provided you have 
good scenery, dresses, and decorations, I daresay 
you wouldn't break your hearts if the outside were 
5 



66 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

as plain as the pikestaff I used to carry when I was 
a sergeant. Apropos, as the French valets say, who 
cut their masters' throats l — apropos, a word about 
dresses. You must, many of you, have seen what 
I have read a description of, Kemble and Mrs. Sid- 
dons in Macbeth, with more gold and silver plastered 
on their doublets than would have kept an honest 
family in butcher's meat and flannel from year's end 
to year's end ! I am informed, (now mind I do not 
vouch for the fact), but I am informed that all such 
extravagant idleness is to be done away with here. 
Lady Macbeth is to have a plain quilted petticoat, 
a cotton gown, and a mob cap (as the court parasites 
call it ; — it will be well for them, if, one of these 
days, they don't wear a mob cap — I mean a while 
cap, with a mob to look at them) ; and Macbeth is 
to appear in an honest yeoman's drab coat, and a 
pair of black calamanco breeches. Not *Sa/amanco ; 
no, nor Talavera neither, my most Noble Marquess ; 
but plain, honest, black calamanco stuff breeches. 

1 An allusion to a murder then recentl}* committed on Barnes 
Terrace. 






HAMPSHIRE FARMER'S ADDRESS. 67 

This is right ; this is as it should be. Most thinking 
people, I have heard you much abused. There is 
not a compound in the language but is strung fifty 
in a rope, like onions, by the Morning Post, and 
hurled in your teeth. You are called the mob ; 
and when they have made you out to be the mob, 
| you are called the scum of the people, and the 
dregs of the people. I should like to know how you 
can be both. Take a basin of broth — not cheap 
soup, Mr. Wiloerforce — not soup for the poor, at a 
penny a quart, as your mixture of horses' legs, brick- 
dust, and old shoes, was denominated — but plain, 
wholesome, patriotic beef or mutton broth ; take this, 
I examine it, and you will find — mind, I don't vouch 
for the fact, but I am told — you will find the dregs 
at the bottom, and the scum at the top. I will 
endeavour to explain this to you : England is a 
large earthenware pipkin ; John Bull is the beef thrown 
into it ; taxes are the hot water he boils in ; rotten 
boroughs are the fuel that blazes under this same 
pipkin ; parliament is the ladle that stirs the hodge- 
podge, and sometimes . But, hold! I don't 



6S REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

wish to pay Mr. Newman 1 a second visit. I leave 
you better off than you have been this many a day : 
you have a good house over your head : you have 
beat the French in Spain ; the harvest has turned 
out well ; the comet keeps its distance ; 2 and red 
slippers are hawked about in Constantinople for next 
to nothing ; and for all this, again and again I tell 
you, you are indebted to Mr. Whitbread ! ! ! 

1 At that time keeper of Newgate. The present superinten- 
dent is styled governor ! 

2 A portentous one that made its appearance in the year 
1S11 ; in the midst of the war, 

" with fear of change 
Perplexing nations." 






THE LIVING LUSTRES. 

BY T. M. i 



: ' Jam te juvaverit 
Viros relinquere, 
Doctseque conjugis 
Sinu quiescere." 

Sir T. More. 



I. 

why should our dull retrospective addresses 2 
Fall damp as wet blankets on Drury Lane fire ? 

Away with blue devils, away with distresses, 
And give the gay spirit to sparkling desire ! 

1 Thomas Moore. 

2 u The Living Lustres appear to us a very fair imitation 
of the fantastic verses which that ingenious person, Mr. Moore, 
indites when he is merely gallant, and, resisting the lures 
of voluptuousness, is not enough in earnest to be tender." — 
Edinburgh Review. 



70 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

II. 

Let artists decide on the beauties of Drury, 
The richest to me is when woman is there ; 

The question of houses I leave to the jury ; 
The fairest to me is the house of the fair. 

in. 
When woman's soft smile all our senses bewilders, 

And gilds, while it carves, her dear form on the heart, 
What need has New Drury of carvers and gilders ? 

With Nature so bounteous, why call upon Art? 

IV. 

How well would our actors attend to their duties, 
Our house save in oil, and our authors in wit, 

In lieu of yon lamps, if a row of young beauties 
Glanced light from their eyes between us and the pit ! 

v. 

The apples that grew on the fruit-tree of knowledge 
By woman were pluck'd, and she still wears the prize, 

To tempt us in theatre, senate, or college — 
I mean the love-apples that bloom in the eyes. 






THE LIVING LUSTRES. 71 

VI. 

There too is the lash which, all statutes controlling, 
Still governs the slaves that are made by the fair ; 

For man is the pupil, who, while her eye 's rolling, 
Is lifted to rapture, or sunk in despair. 

VII. 

Bloom, Theatre, bloom, in the roseate blushes 
Of beauty illumed by a love-breathing smile ! 

And flourish, ye pillars, 1 as green as the rushes 
That pillow the nymphs of the Emerald Isle ! 

VIII. 

For dear is the Emerald Isle of the ocean, 

Whose daughters are fair as the foam of the wave, 

Whose sons, unaccustom'd to rebel commotion, 

Though joyous, are sober — though peaceful, are 
brave. 

1 This alludes to two massive pillars of verd antique which 
then flanked the proscenium, but which have since been 
removed. Their colour reminds the bard of the Emerald Isle, 
and this causes him {more suo) to fly off at a tangent, and 
Hibernicise the rest of the poem. 



72 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

IX. 

The shamrock their olive, sworn foe to a quarrel, 
Protects from the thunder and lightning of rows ; 

Their sprig of shillelagh is nothing but laurel, 
Which flourishes rapidly over their brows. 

x. 

! soon shall they burst the tyrannical shackles 
Which each panting bosom indignantly names, 

Until not one goose at the capital cackles 

Against the grand question of Catholic claims. 

XI. 

And then shall each Paddy, who once on the LifTy 
Perchance held the helm of some mackerel-hoy, 

Hold the helm of the state, and dispense in a jiffy 
More fishes than ever he caught when a boy. 

XII. 

And those who now quit their hods, shovels, and bar- 
rows, 

In crowds to the bar of some ale-house to flock, 
When bred to our bar shall be Gibbses and Garrows, 

Assume the silk gown, and discard the smock-frock. 



THE LIVING LUSTRES. 



73 



For Erin surpasses the daughters of Neptune, 
As Dian outshines each encircling star ; 

And the spheres of the heavens could never have kept 
tune 
Till set to the music of Erin-go-brao-h ! 



THE REBUILDING. 

BY R. S. i 



" Per audaces nova dithyrarnbos 

Verba derolvit, nurnerisque fertur 
Lesre solutis." Horat. 



[SpoJc£7i by a Glendoveer .] 

I am a blessed Glendoveer : 2 
'Tis mine to speak, and yours to hear. 3 

1 Robert Southey. 

2 For the Glendoveer, and the rest of the dramatis persona 
of this imitation, the reader is referred to the " Curse of Ke- 
hama." 

3 " The Rebuilding is in the name of Mr. Southey, and is 
one of the best in the collection. It is in the st} r le of the 
Kehama of that multifarious author ; and is supposed to be 
spoken in the character of one of his Glendoveers. The imi- 
tation of the diction and measure, we think, is nearlv almost 
perfect ; and the descriptions as good as the original. It 



THE REBUILDING. 75 

Midnight, yet not a nose 
From Tower-hill to Piccadilly snored ! 

Midnight, yet not a npse 
From Indra drew the essence of repose ! 
See with what crimson fury, 
By Indra fann'd, the god of fire ascends the walls of 
Drury ! 

Tops of houses, blue with lead, 

Bend beneath the landlord's tread. 

Master and 'prentice, serving-man and lord, 

Nailor and tailor, 

Grazier and brazier, 

Through streets and alleys pour'd — 

All, all abroad to gaze, 

And wonder at the blaze. 

Thick calf, fat foot, and slim knee, 

Mounted on roof and chimney, 1 

opens with an account of the burning of the old theatre, 
formed upon the pattern of the Funeral of Arvalan." — Edin- 
burgh Review. 

1 This couplet was introduced by the Authors by way of 
bravado, in answer to one who alleged that the English lan- 
guage contained no rhyme to chimney. 



iO REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

The mighty roast, the mighty stew 

To see ; 

As if the dismal view 

Were but to them a Brentford jubilee. 

Vainly, all-radiant Surya, sire of Phaeton 

(By Greeks calPd Apollo) 1 

Hollow 

Sounds from thy harp proceed ; 

Combustible as reed, 

1 Apollo. A gigantic wooden figure of this deity was 

erected on the roof. The writer (horrescit referens !) is old 

enough to recollect the time when it was first placed there. 

Old Bishop, then one of the masters of Merchant Tailors' 

School, wrote an epigram upon the occasion, which, referring 

to the aforesaid figure, concluded thus : 

" Above he fills up Shakespeare's place, 
And Shakespeare fills up his below " — 

Very antithetical : but qusere as to the meaning ? The writer, 
like Pluto, " long puzzled his brain " to find it out, till he was 
immersed " in a lower deep" by hearing Madame de Stacl 
say, at the table of the late Lord Dillon, " Buonaparte is not 
a man, but a system." Inquiry was made in the course of 
the evening of Sir James Mackintosh as to what the lady 
meant? He answered, "Mass! I cannot tell." Madame de 
Stael repeats this apophthegm in her work on Germany. It is 
probably understood there. 



THE REBUILDING. 

The tongue of Vulcan licks thy wooden legs : 

From Drury's top, dissever' d from thy pegs, 

Thou tumblest, * 

Humblest, 

Where late thy bright effulgence shone on high ; 

While, by thy somerset excited, fly 

Ten million 

Billion 

Sparks from the pit to gem the sable sky. 



Now come the men of fire to quench the fires : 
To Russell Street see Globe and Atlas run, 
Hope gallops first, and second Sun ; 
On flying heel, 
See Hand-in-Hand 
O'ertake the band ! 
View with what glowing wheel 
He nicks 
Phoenix ! 
While Albion scampers from Bridge Street, Black- 
friars — 



78 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Druiy Lane ! Drury Lane ! 

Drury Lane ! Drury Lane ! 

They shout and they bellow again and again. 

All, all in vain ! 

Water turns steam ; 

Each blazing beam 

Hisses defiance to the eddying spout : 

It seems but too plain that nothing can put it out ! 

Drury Lane ! Drury Lane ! 

See, Drury Lane expires ! 

Pent in by smoke-dried beams, twelve moons or more, 

Shorn of his ray, 

Surya in durance lay : 

The workmen heard him shout, 

But thought it would not pay, 

To dig him out. 

When lo ! terrific Yamen, lord of hell, 

Solemn as lead, 

Judge of the dead, 

Sworn foe to witticism, 

By men called criticism, 



THE REBUILDING. 79 

Came passing by that way : 

Rise ! cried the fiend, behold a sight of gladness ! 

Behold the rival theatre ! 

I Ve set O. P. at her, 1 

1 0. P. This personage, who is alleged to have growled 
like a bull-dog, requires rather a lengthened note, for the 
edification of the rising generation. The "horns, rattles, 
drums," with which he is accompanied, are no inventions of 
the poet. The new Covent Garden Theatre opened on the 
18th Sept. 1809, when a cry of "Old Prices" (afterwards 
diminished to 0. P.) burst out from every part of the house. 
This continued and increased in violence till the 23rd, when 
rattles, drums, whistles, and cat-calls, having completely 
drowned the voices of the actors, Mr. Kemble, the stage- 
manager, came forward and said, that a committee of gen- 
tlemen had undertaken to examine the finances of the concern, 
and that until they were prepared with their report the theatre 
would continue closed. "Name them!" was shouted from 
all sides. The names were declared, viz., Sir Charles Price, 
the Solicitor-General, the Recorder of London, the Governor 
of the Bank, and Mr. Angersteen. "All shareholders!" 
bawled a wag from the gallery. In a few days the theatre 
re-opened : the public paid no attention to the report of the 
referees, and the tumult was renewed for several weeks with 
even increased violence. The proprietors now sent in hired 
bruisers, to mill the refractory into subjection. This irritated 
most of their former friends, and, amongst the rest, the anno- 



80 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Who, like a bull-dog bold, 

Growls and fastens on his hold. 

The many-headed rabble roar in madness : 

Thy rival staggers : come and spy her 

Deep in the mud as thou art in the mire. 

So saying, in his arms he caught the beaming one, 

And crossing Russell Street, 

He placed him on his feet 

'Neath Coyent Garden dome. Sudden a sound, 

As of the bricklayers of Babel, rose : 

Horns, rattles, drums, tin trumpets, sheets of copper, 

tator, who accordingly wrote the song of " Heigh-ho, says 
Kemble," which was caught up by the ballad-singers, and 
sung under Mr. Kemble's house-windows in Great Russell- 
street. A dinner was given at the Crown and Anchor Tavern 
in the Strand, to celelebrate the victory obtained by W. Clif- 
ford in his action against Brandon the box-keeper, for assault- 
ing him for wearing the letters 0. P. in his hat. At this 
dinner Mr. Kemble attended, and matters were compromised 
by allowing the advanced price (seven shillings) to the boxes. 
The writer remembers a former riot of a similar sort at the 
same theatre (in the year 1792), when the price to the boxes 
was raised from five shillings to six. That tumult, however, 
only lasted three nights. 






THE REBUILDING. 81 

Punches and slaps, thwacks of all sorts and sizes, 
From the knobb'd bludgeon to the taper switch, 1 

1 " From the knobb'd bludgeon to the taper switch." This 
image is not the creation of the poets : it sprang from reality. 
The Authors happened to be at the Royal Circus when " God 
save the King " was called for, accompanied by a cry of 
" Stand up ! " and " Hats off! " An inebriated naval lieuten- 
ant, perceiving a gentleman in an adjoining box slow to obey 
the call, struck his hat off with his stick, exclaiming, " Take 
off your hat, sir ! " The other thus assaulted proved to be, 
unluckily for the lieutenant, Lord Camelford, the celebrated 
bruiser and duellist. A set-to in the lobby was the conse- 
quence, where his lordship quickly proved victorious. " The 
devil is not so black as he is painted," said one of the Authors 
to the other j "let us call upon Lord Camelford, and tell him 
that we were witnesses of his being first assaulted." The 
visit was paid on the ensuing morning at Lord Camelford' s 
lodgings, in Bond-street. Over the fire-place in the drawing- 
room, were ornaments strongly expressive of the pugnacity of 
the peer. A long thick bludgeon lay horizontally supported 
by two brass hooks. Above this was placed parallel one of 
lesser dimensions, until a pyramid of weapons gradually arose, 
tapering to a horsewhip : 

" Thus all below was strength, and all above was grace." 

Lord Camelford received his visitants with great civility, 
and thanked them warmly for the call j adding, that their 
evidence would be material, it being his intention to indict the 

6 



82 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Ran echoing round the walls ; paper placards 

Blotted the lamps, boots brown with mud the benches ; 

A sea of heads roll'd roaring in the pit ; 

On paper wings O. P.'s 

Reclin'd in lettered ease ; 

While shout and scoff, 

Ya! ya! off! off! 

Like thunderbolt on Surya's ear-drum fell, 

And seemed to paint 

The savage oddities of Saint 

Bartholomew in hell. 

Tears dimm'd the god of light — 

" Bear me back, Yamen, from this hideous sight ; 

Bear me back, Yamen, I grow sick, 

Oh ! bury me again in brick ; 

lieutenant for an assault. " All I can say in return is this," 
exclaimed the peer -with great cordiality, "if ever I see you 
engaged in a row, upon my soul, I '11 stand by you." The 
Authors expressed themselves thankful for so potent an ally, 
and departed. In about a fortnight afterwards Lord Camelford 
was shot in a duel with Mr. Best. 



THE REBUILDING. 83 

Shall I on New Drury tremble, 

To be O. P.M like Kemble ? 

No, 

Better remain by rubbish guarded, 

Than thus hubbubish groan placarded ; 

Bear me back, Yamen, bear me quick, 

And bury me again in brick.'" 

Obedient Yamen 

Answered, " Amen," 

And did 

As he was bid. 

There lay the buried god, and Time 

Seemed to decree eternity of lime ; 

But pity, like a dew-drop, gently prest 

Almighty Veeshno's 1 adamantine breast : 

He, the preserver, ardent still 

To do whate'er he says he will, 

From South-hill wing'd his way, 

To raise the drooping lord of day. 

All earthly spells the busy one o'erpower'd ; 

1 Veeshnoo. The late Mr. Whitbread. 



84 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

He treats with men of all conditions, 

Poets and players, tradesmen, and musicians ; 

Nay, even ventures 

To attack the renters, 

Old and new : 

A list he gets 

Of claims and debts, 

And deems nought done, while aught remains to do. 

Yamen beheld, and witherM at the sight ; 

Long had he aim'd the sunbeam to control, 

For light was hateful to his soul : 

" Go on ! " cried the hellish one, yellow with spite ; 

4t Go on ! " cried the hellish one, yellow with spleen, 

" Thy toils of the morning, like Ithaca's queen, 

I '11 toil to undo every night." 

Ye sons of song, rejoice ! 

Veshnoo has still'd the jarring elements, 

The spheres hymn music ; 

Again the god of day 

Peeps forth with trembling ray, 

Wakes, from their humid caves, the sleeping Nine, 

And pours at intervals a strain divine. 



THE REBUILDING. 85 

" I have an iron yet in the fire," cried Yamen ; 

u The vollied flame rides in my breath, 

My blast is elemental death ; 

This hand shall tear your paper bonds to pieces ; 

Ingross your deeds, assignments, leases, 

My breath shall every line erase 

Soon as I blow the blaze." 

The lawyers are met at the Crown and Anchor, 

And Yamen's visage grows blanker and blanker ; 

The lawyers are met at the Anchor and Crown, 

And Yamen's cheek is a russety brown : 

Veshnoo, now thy work proceeds ; 

The solicitor reads, 

And, merit of merit ! 

Red wax and green ferret 

Are fixed at the foot of the deeds ! 

Yamen beheld and shiver'd ; 

His finger and thumb were cramped ; 

His ear by the flea in 't was bitten, 

When he saw by the lawyer's clerk written, 

Sealed and delivered, ) 

Being first duly stamped. ) 



86 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 



" Xow for my turn ! " the demon cries, and blows 

A blast of sulphur from his mouth and nose. 

Ah ! bootless aim ! the critic fiend, 

Sagacious Yamen, judge of hell, 

Is judged in his turn ; 

Parchment wo n't burn ! 

His schemes of vengeance are dissolved in air, 

Parchment won't tear ' ! 



Is it not written in the Himakoot book, 

(That mighty Baly from Kehama took) 

" Who blows on pounce 

Must the Swerga renounce ? " 

It is ! it is ! Yamen, thine hour is nigh : 

Like as an eagle claws an asp, 

Yeeshnoo has caught him in his mighty grasp, 

And hurl'd him, in spite of his shrieks and his squalls, 

Whizzing aloft, like the Temple fountain, 

Three times as high as Mem mountain, 

Which is 
Ninety-nine times as high as St. Paul's. 






THE REBUILDING. 87 

Descending, he twisted like Levy the Jew,i 

Who a durable grave meant 

To dig in the pavement 

Of Monument-yard* 

To earth by the laws of attraction he flew, 

And he fell, and he fell 

To the regions of hell ; 

Nine centuries bounced he from cavern to rock, 

And his head, as he tumbled, went nickety-nock, 

Like a pebble in Carisbrook well. 

Now Veeshnoo turn'd round to a capering varlet, 

Arrayed in blue and white and scarlet, 

And cried, " Oh ! brown of slipper as of hat ! 

Lend me, Harlequin, thy bat ! " 

1 Levy. An insolvent Israelite who threw himself from the 
top of the Monument a short time before. An inhabitant of 
Monument-yard informed the writer, that he happened to be 
standing at his door talking to a neighbour ; and looking up at 
the top of the pillar, exclaimed, " Why, here's the flag coming 
down." " Flag ! " answered the other, " it 's a man." The 
words were hardly uttered, when the suicide fell within ten 
feet of the speakers. 



88 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 



He seized the wooden sword, and smote the earth 

When lo ! upstarting into birth 

A fabric, gorgeous to behold, 

Outshone in elegance the old, 

And Veeshnoo saw, and cried, " Hail, playhouse 

mine ! n 

Then, bending his head, to Surya he said : 

" Soon as thy maiden sister Di 

Caps with her copper lid the dark blue sky, 

And through the fissures of her clouded fan 

Peeps at the naughty monster man, 

Go mount yon edifice, 

And shew thy steady face 

In renovated pride, 

More bright, more glorious than before ! " 

But ah ! coy Surya still felt a twinge, 

Still smarted from his former singe ; 

And to Veeshnoo replied, 

In a tone rather gruff, 

" No, thank you ! one tumble 's enough ! " 






DRURY'S DIRGE. 

BY LAURA MATILDA. 1 



: ' You praise our sires : but though they wrote with force, 
Their rhymes were vicious, and their diction coarse : 
We want their strength, agreed ; but we atone 
For that and more, by sweetness all our own." — Giffoed. 



1. 

Balmy Zephyrs, lightly flitting, 
Shade me with your azure wing ; 

On Parnassus' summit sitting, 
Aid me, Clio, while I sing. 

11. 
Softly slept the dome of Drury 

O'er the empyreal crest, 
When Alecto's sister-fury 

Softly slumb'ring sunk to rest. 

1 The Authors, as in gallantry bound, wish this lady to con- 
tinue anonymous. 



9G REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

III. 

Lo ! from Lemnos limping lamely, 
Lags the lowly Lord of Fire, 

Cytherea yielding tamely 

To the Cyclops dark and dire. 

IV. 

Clouds of amber, dreams of gladness, 
Dulcet joys and sports of youth, 

Soon must yield to haughty sadness ; 
Mercy holds the veil to Truth. 

v. 

See Erostratus the second 
Fires again Diana's fane ; 

By the Fates from Orcus beckon' d, 
Clouds envelop Drury Lane. 

VI. 

Lurid smoke and frank suspicion 
Hand in hand reluctant dance : 

While the God fulfils his mission, 
Chivalry, resign thy lance. 



DRURY : S DIRGE. 91 

VII. 

Hark ! the engines blandly thunder, 

Fleecy clouds dishevell'd lie, 
And the firemen, mute with wonder, 

On the son of Saturn cry. 

VIII. 

See the bird of Amnion sailing, 

Perches on the engine's peak, 
And, the Eagle firemen hailing, 

Soothes them with its bickering beak. 

IX. 

Juno saw, and mad with malice, 

Lost the prize that Paris gave : 
Jealousy's ensanguined chalice, 

Mantling pours the orient wave. 

x. 

Pan beheld Patroclus dying, 

Nox to Niobe was turn'd ; 
From Busiris Bacchus flying, 
Saw his Semele inurn'd. 



92 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

XI. 

Thus fell Drury's lofty glory, 

LevelPd with the shuddering stones ; 

Mars, with tresses black and gory, 
Drinks the dew of pearly groans. 

XII. 

Hark ! what soft Eolian numbers 
Gem the blushes of the morn ! 

Break, Amphion, break your slumbers, 
Nature's ringlets deck the thorn. 

XIII. 

Ha ! I hear the strain erratic 
Dimly glance from pole to pole ; 

Raptures sweet and dreams ecstatic 
Fire my everlasting soul. 

XIV. 

Where is Cupid's crimson motion ? 

Billowy ecstasy of woe, 
Bear me straight, meandering ocean, 

Where the stagnant torrents flow. 



drtiry's dirge. 93 

xv. 
Blood in every vein is gushing, 

Vixen vengeance lulls my heart ; 
See, the Gorgon gang is rushing ! 

Never, never let us part ! 



" ' Drury's Dirge/ by Laura Matilda, is not of the first 
quality. The verses, to be sure, are very smooth, and very 
nonsensical — as was intended; but they are not so good as 
Swift's celebrated Song by a Person of Quality ; and are so 
exactly in the same measure, and on the same plan, that it is 
impossible to avoid making the comparison." — Edinburgh 
Review. 






A TALE OF DRURY LANE. 

BY W. S.1 



" Tlius he went on, stringing one extravagance upon another, in the style his 
books of chivalry had taught him, and imitating, as near as he could, their 
very phrase." 2 — Don Quixote. 



[To be spoken by Mr. Kemble, in a suit of the Black Prince's 
Armour, borrowed from the Tower.'] 

Survey this shield, all bossy bright — 
These cuisses twain behold ! 
Look on my form in armour dight 
Of steel inlaid with gold ; 

1 "Walter Scott. 

2 Sir Walter Scott informed the annotator, that at one time 
he intended to print his collected works, and had pitched upon 
this identical quotation as a motto ; — a proof that sometimes 
great wits jump with little ones. 



A TALE OF DRTJRY LANE. 95 

My knees are stiff in iron buckles, 
Stiff spikes of steel protect my knuckles. 
These once belonged to sable prince, 
Who never did in battle wince ; 
With valour tart as pungent quince, 

He slew the vaunting Gaul. 
Rest there awhile, my bearded lance, 
While from green curtain I advance 
To yon foot-lights, no trivial dance, 1 
And tell the town what sad mischance 

Did Drury Lane befall. 

On fair Augusta's towers and trees 
Flitted the silent midnight breeze, 
Curling the foliage as it past, 
Which from the moon-tipp'd plumage cast 
A spangled light, like dancing spray, 
Then reassumed its still array ; 

1 Alluding to the then great distance between the picture- 
frame, in which the green curtain was set, and the band. For 
a justification of this see below — Dr. Johnson. 



96 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

When, as night's lamp unclouded hung. 

And down its full effulgence flung, 

It shed such soft and balmy power 

That cot and castle, hall and bower, 

And spire and dome, and turret height, 

Appeared to slumber in the light. 

From Henry's chapel, Rufus' hall, 

To Savoy, Temple, and St. Paul, 

From Knightsbridge, Pancras, Camden Town, 

To Redriff, Shadwell, Horsleydown, 

No voice was heard, no eye unclosed, 

But all in deepest sleep reposed. 

They might have thought, who gazed around 

Amid a silence so profound, 

It made the senses thrill, 
That 't was no place inhabited, 
But some vast city of the dead — 

All was so hush'd and still. 

2T!)e 33urnfng. 

As Chaos, which by heavenly doom, 
Had slept in everlasting gloom, 






A TALE OF DRURY LANE. 97 

Started with terror and surprise 

When light first flash'd upon her eyes — 

So London's sons in nightcap woke, 

In bed-gown woke her da'mes ; 
For shouts were heard 'mid fire and smoke . 
And twice ten hundred voices spoke — 

" The playhouse is in flames ! " 
And lo ! where Catherine Street extends. 
A fiery tail its lustre lends 

To every window pane ; 
Blushes each spout in Martlet Court, 
And Barbican, moth-eaten fort, 
And Covent Garden kennels sport, 

A bright ensanguined drain ; 
Meux's new brewhouse shews the light, 
Rowland Hill's chapel, and the height 

Where patent shot they sell ; 
The Tennis Court, so fair and tall, 
Partakes the ray, with Surgeons' Hall. 
The ticket-porters' house of call, 
Old Bedlam, close by London Wall, 1 

Old Bedlam at that time stood " close by London Wall." It 
7 



98 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Wright's shrimp and oyster shop withal, 

And Richardson's Hotel. 
Nor these alone, but far and wide, 
Across red Thames's gleaming tide, 
To distant fields, the blaze was borne, 
And daisy white and hoary thorne 
In borrow'd lustre seem'd to sham 
The rose or red sweet Wil-li-am. 
To those who on the hills around 
Beheld the flames from Drury's mound, 

As from a lofty altar rise, 
It seem'd that nations did conspire 
To offer to the god of fire 

Some vast stupendous sacrifice ! 

was built after the model of the Tuileries, which is said to 
have given the French king great offence. In front of it 
Moornelds extended, with broad gravel walks crossing each 
other at right angles. These the writer well recollects; and 
Rivaz, an underwriter at Lloyd's, has told him, that he re- 
membered when the merchants of London would parade these 
walks on a summer evening with their wives and daughters. 
But now, as a punning brother bard sings, 

" Moorfields are fields no more." 



A TALE OF DRITRY LANE. 99 

The summon'd firemen woke at call, 
And hied them to their stations all : 
Starting from short and broken snooze, 
Each sought his pond'rous hobnaiPd shoes, 
But first his worsted hosen plied, 
Plush breeches next, in crimson died, 

His nether bulk embraced ; 
Then jacket thick, of red or blue, 
Whose massy shoulder gave to view 
The badge of each respective crew, 

In tin or copper traced. 
The engines thunder' d through the street, 
Fire-hook, pipe, bucket, all complete, 
And torches glared, and clattering feet 

Along the pavement paced. 
And one, the leader of the band, 
From Charing Cross along the Strand, 
Like stag by beagles hunted hard, 
Ran till he stopp'd at Vin'gar Yard. 
The burning badge his shoulder bore, 
The belt and oil-skin hat he wore, 
The cane he had, his men to bang, 
Show'd foreman of the British gang — 



100 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

His name was Higsjmbottom. Now 

DO 

'T is meet that I should tell you how 

The others came in view : 
The Hand-in-Hancl the race begun, 
Then came the Phoenix and the Sun, 
Th' Exchange, where old insurers run, 

The Eagle, where the new ; 
With these came Rumford, Bumford, Cole, 
Robins from Hockly in the Hole, 
Lawson and Dawson, cheek by jowl, 

Crump from St. Giles's Pound : 
Whitford and Mitford join'd the train, 
Huggins and Muggins from Chick Lane, 
And Clutterbuck, who got a sprain 

Before the plug was found. 
Hobson and Jobson did not sleep, 
But ah ! no trophy could they reap, 
For both were in the Donjon Keep 

Of Bridewell's gloomy mound ! 

E'en Higginbottom was now posed, 
For sadder scene was ne'er disclosed ; 



A TALE OF DRURY LANE. 101 

Without, within, in hideous show, 
Devouring flames resistless glow, 
And blazing rafters downward go, 
And never halloo " Heads below ! " 

Nor notice give at all. 
The firemen terrified are slow 
To bid the pumping torrent flow, 

For fear the roof should fall. 
Back, Robins, back! Crump, stand aloof! 
Whitford, keep near the walls ! 
Huggins, regard your own behoof, 
For lo ! the blazing rocking roof 
Down, down, in thunder falls ! 
An awful pause succeeds the stroke, 
And o'er the ruins volumed smoke, 
Rolling around its pitchy shroud, 
Conceal'd them from th' astonish'd crowd. 
At length the mist awhile was clear'd, 
When, lo ! amid the wreck uprear'd, 
Gradual a moving head appearM, 

And Eagle firemen knew 
'T was Joseph Muggins, name revered, 

The foreman of their crew. 



102 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Loud shouted all in signs of wo, 
" A Muggins ! to the rescue, ho ! " 

And pour'd the hissing tide : 
Meanwhile the Muggins fought amain, 
And strove and struggled all in vain, 
For, rallying but to fall again, 

He totter'd, sunk, and died ! 

Did none attempt, before he fell, 
To succour one they loved so well ? 
Yes, Higginbottom did aspire 
(His fireman's soul was all on fire), 

His brother chief to save ; 
But ah ! his reckless generous ire 

Served but to share his grave ! 
'Mid blazing beams and scalding streams, 
Through fire and smoke he dauntless broke, 

Where Muggins broke before. 
But sulphury stench and boiling drench 
Destroying sight o'erwhelm'd him quite, 

He sunk to rise no more. 
Still o'er his head, while Fate he braved, 
His whizzing water-pipe he waved ; 



A TALE OF DRURY LANE. 103 

" Whitford and Mitford, ply your pumps, 
You, Clutterbuck, come, stir your stumps, 
Why are you in such doleful dumps ? 
A fireman, and afraid of bumps ! — 
What are they fearM on ? fools ! 'od rot 'em ! " 
Were the last words of Higginbottom. 

E\)z SRcMbal. 
Peace to his soul ! new prospects bloom, 
And toil rebuilds what fires consume ! 
Eat we and drink we, be our ditty, 
" Joy to the managing committee ! " 
Eat we and drink we, join to rum 
Roast beef and pudding of the plum ; 
Forth from thy nook, John Horner, come, 
With bread of ginger brown thy thumb, 

For this is Drury's gay day : 
Roll, roll thy hoop, and twirl thy tops, 
And buy, to glad thy smiling chops, 
Crisp parliament with lollypops, 

And fingers of the Lady. 

Didst mark, how toil'd the busy train, 
From morn to eve, till Drury Lane 



104 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Leap'd like a roebuck from the plain ? 
Hopes rose and sunk, and rose again, 

And nimble workmen trod ; 
To realize bold Wyatt's plan 
Rush'd many a howling Irishman ; 
Loud clatter'd many a porter-can, 
And many a raggamumn clan, 

With trowel and with hod. 

Drury revives ! her rounded pate 
Is blue, is heavenly blue with slate ; 
She " wings the midway air " elate, 

As magpie, crow, or chough ; 
White paint her modish visage smears, 
Yellow and pointed are her ears, 
No pendant portico appears 
Dangling beneath, for Whitbread's shears * 

Have cut the bauble off. 

1 " Whitbread's shears." An economical experiment of that 
gentleman. The present portico, towards Brydges Street, was 
afterwards erected under the lesseeship of Elliston, whose 
portrait in the Exhibition was thus noticed in the Examiner : 
• ' Portrait of the great lessee in his favourite character of Mr. 
Elliston." 



A TALE OF DRURY LANE. 105 

Yes, she exalts her stately head ; 

And, but that solid bulk outspread, 

Opposed you on your onward tread, 

And posts and pillars warranted 

That all was true that Wyatt said, 

You might have deem'd her walls so thick 

Were not composed of stone or brick, 

But all a phantom, all a trick, 

Of brain disturb'd and fancy-sick, 

So high she soars, so vast, so quick ! 



"From the parody of Walter Scott we know not what to 
select — it is all good. The effect of the fire on the town, and 
the description of a fireman in his official apparel, may be 
quoted as amusing specimens of the misapplication of the style 
and metre of Mr. Scott's admirable romances." — Quarterly 
Review. 

" ' A Tale of Drury,' by Walter Scott, is, upon the whole, 
admirably executed j though the introduction is rather tame. 
The burning is described with the mighty minstrel's character- 
istic love of localities. The catastrophe is described with a 
spirit not unworthy of the name so venturously assumed by 
the describer." — Edinburgh Review. 



JOHNSON'S GHOST, i 



[Ghost of Dr. Johnson rises from trap-door P. S., and Ghost 
o/'Boswell from trap-door O. P. The latter bows respect- 
fully to the House, and obsequiously to the Doctor's Ghost, 
and retires.] 

Doctors Ghost loquitur. 
That which was organised by the moral ability of 
one has been executed by the physical efforts of 

1 u Samuel Johnson is not so good : the measure and 
solemnity of his sentences, in all the limited variety of their 
structure, are indeed imitated with singular skill ; but the 
diction is caricatured in a vulgar and unpleasing degree. To 
make Johnson call a door ' a ligneous barricado,' and its 
knocker and bell its ' frappant and tintinnabulant appendages/ 
is neither just nor humorous ; and we are surprised that a 
writer who has given such extraordinary proofs of his talent 
for finer ridicule and fairer imitation, should have stooped to 
a vein of pleasantry so low, and so long ago exhausted j 
especially as, in other passages of the same piece, he has 
shown how well qualified he was both to catch and to render 
the true characteristics of his original. The beginning, for 
example, we think excellent." — Edinburgh Review. 



johnsoin's ghost. 107 

many, and Drury Lane Theatre is now complete. 
Of that part behind the curtain, which has not yet 
been destined to glow beneath the brush of the var- 
nisher, or vibrate to the hammer' of the carpenter, 
little is thought by the public, and little need be said 
by the committee. Truth, however, is not to be 
sacrificed for the accommodation of either ; and he 
who should pronounce that our edifice has received 
its final embellishment, would be disseminating false- 
hood without incurring favour, and risking the dis- 
grace of detection without participating the advantage 
of success. 

Professions lavishly effused and parsimoniously 
verified are alike inconsistent with the precepts of 
innate rectitude and the practice of external policy : 
let it not then be conjectured, that because we are 
unassuming, we are imbecile ; that forbearance is any 
indication of despondency, or humility of demerit. 
He that is the most assured of success will make the 
fewest appeals to favour, and where nothing is claimed 
that is undue, nothing that is due will be withheld. 
A swelling opening is too often succeeded by an insig- 



108 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

nificant conclusion. Parturient mountains have ere 
now produced muscipular abortions ; and the auditor 
who compares incipient grandeur with final vulgarity 
is reminded of the pious hawkers of Constantinople, 
who solemnly perambulate her streets, exclaiming, 
" In the name of the Prophet — figs ! " 

Of many who think themselves wise, and of some 
who are thought wise by others, the exertions are 
directed to the revival of mouldering and obscure 
dramas ; to endeavours to exalt that which is now 
rare only because it was always worthless, and whose 
deterioration, while it condemned it to living obscurity, 
by a strange obliquity of moral perception constitutes 
its title to posthumous renown. To embody the flying 
colours of folly, to arrest evanescence, to give to 
bubbles the globular consistency as well as form, to 
exhibit on the stage the piebald denizen of the stable, 
and the half-reasoning parent of combs, to display 
the brisk locomotion of Columbine, or the tortuous 
attitudenising of Punch ; — these are the occupations 
of others, whose ambition, limited to the applause of 
unintellectual fatuity, is too innocuous for the applica- 



Johnson's ghost. 109 

tion of satire, and too humble for the incitement of 
jealousy. 

Our refectory will be found to contain every species 
of fruit, from the cooling nectarine and luscious peach 
to the puny pippin and the noxious nut. There Indo- 
lence may repose, and Inebriety revel ; and the spruce 
apprentice, rushing in at second account, may there 
chatter with impunity ; debarred, by a barrier of brick 
and mortar, from marring that scenic interest in 
others, which nature and education have disqualified 
him from comprehending himself. 

Permanent stage -doors we have none. That which 
is permanent cannot be removed, for, if removed, it 
soon ceases to be permanent. What stationary absur- 
dity can vie with that ligneous barricado, which, 
decorated with frappant and tintinnabulant appendages, 
now serves as the entrance of the lowly cottage, and 
now as the exit of a lady's bed-chamber ; at one time, 
insinuating plastic Harlequin into a butcher's shop, 
and, at another, yawning, as a flood-gate, to precipi- 
tate the Cyprians of St. Giles's into the embraces of 
Macheath. To elude this glaring absurdity, to give 



110 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

to each respective mansion the door which the car- 
penter would doubtless have given, we vary our portal 
with the varying scene, passing from deal to mahog- 
any, and from mahogany to oak, as the opposite 
claims of cottage, palace, or castle, may appear to 
require. 

Amid the general hum of gratulation which flatters 
us in front, it is fit that some regard should be paid to 
the murmurs of despondence that assail us in the rear. 
They, as I have elsewhere expressed it, " who live to 
please," should not have their own pleasures entirely 
overlooked. The children of Thespis are general in 
their censures of the architect, in having placed the 
locality of exit at such a distance from the oily irradi- 
ators which now dazzle the eyes of him who addresses 
you. I am, cries the Queen of Terrors, robbed of 
my fair proportions. "When the king-killing Thane 
hints to the breathless auditory the murders he means 
to perpetrate, in the castle of Macduff, " ere his pur- 
pose cool ; " so vast is the interval he has to travel 
before he can escape from the stage, that his purpose 
has even time to freeze. Your condition, cries the 



Ill 



Muse of Smiles, is hard, but it is cygnet's down in 
comparison with mine. The peerless peer of capers 
and congees l has laid it down as a rule, that the best 
good thing uttered by the morning visitor should con- 
duct him rapidly to the doorway, last impressions 
vying in durability with first. But when, on this 
boarded elongation, it falls to my lot to say a good 
thing, to ejaculate, " keep moving," or to chant, " hie 
hoc horum genitivo" many are the moments that must 
elapse, ere I can hide myself from public vision in 
the recesses of O. P. or P. S. 

To objections like these, captiously urged and que- 
rulously maintained, it is time that equity should 
conclusively reply. Deviation from scenic propriety 
has only to vituperate itself for the consequences it 
generates. Let the actor consider the line of exit as 
that line beyond which he should not soar in quest of 
spurious applause : let him reflect, that in proportion 
as he advances to the lamps, he recedes from nature ; 

1 The celebrated Lord Chesterfield, whose Letters to his 
Son, according to Dr. Johnson, inculcate " the manners of a 
dancing-master and the morals of — ," &c. 



112 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

that the truncheon of Hotspur acquires no additional 
charm from encountering the cheek of beauty in the 
stage-box, and that the bravura of Mandane may pro- 
duce effect, although the throat of her who warbles it 
should not overhang the orchestra. The Jove of the 
modern critical Olympus, Lord Mayor of the theatric 
sky, 1 has, ex cathedra, asserted, that a natural actor 
looks upon the audience part of the theatre as the 
third side of the chamber he inhabits. Surely, of the 
third wall thus fancifully erected, our actors should, 

1 " Lord Mayor of the theatric sky." This alludes to Leigh 
Hunt, who, in The Examiner, at this time kept the actors in 
hot water. Dr. Johnson's argument is, like many of his other 
arguments, specious, but untenable ; that which it defends 
has since been abandoned as impracticable. Mr. Whitbread 
contended that the actor was like a portrait in a picture, and 
accordingly placed the green curtain in a gilded frame remote 
from the foot-lights ; alleging that no performer should mar 
the illusion by stepping out of the frame. Dowton was the 
first actor who, like Manfred's ancestor in the Castle of Oiranto, 
took the liberty of abandoning the canon. " Don't tell me of 
frames and pictures," ejaculated the testy comedian; "if I 
can't be heard by the audience in the frame, I '11 walk out of 
it ! " The proscenium has since been new-modelled, and the 
actors thereby brought nearer to the audience. 



Johnson's ghost. 113 

by ridicule or reason, be withheld from knocking their 
heads against the stucco. 

Time forcibly reminds me, that all things which 
have a limit must be brought to a conclusion. Let 
me, ere that conclusion arrives, recall to your recol- 
lection, that the pillars which rise on either side of 
me, blooming in virid antiquity, like two massy ever- 
greens, had yet slumbered in their native quarry, but 
for the ardent exertions of the individual who called 
them into life : to his never-slumbering talents you 
are indebted for whatever pleasure this haunt of the 
Muses is calculated to afford. If, in defiance of 
chaotic malevolence, the destroyer of the temple of 
Diana yet survives in the name of Erostratus, surely 
we may confidently predict, that the rebuilder of the 
temple of Apollo will stand recorded to distant pos- 
terity in that of — Samuel Whitbread. 



THE BEAUTIFUL INCENDIARY. 

BY THE HON. W. S. 1 



" Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas." — Tirgil. 



[Scene draws, and discovers a Lady asleep on a couch.'] 

E?iter Philander. 

PHILANDER. 

I. 

Sobriety, cease to be sober, 2 

Cease, Labour, to dig and to delve ; 

All hail to this tenth of October, 

One thousand eight hundred and twelve ! 

1 William Spencer. 

2 " Sobriety," &c. The good-humour of the poet upon 
occasion of this parody has been noticed in the Preface. " It's 
all very well for once/' said he afterwards, in comic confi- 
dence, at his villa at Petersham, "but don't do it again. 
I had been almost forgotten when you revived me ; and now 
all the newspapers and reviews ring with ' this fashionable, 



THE BEAUTIFUL INCENDIARY. 115 

Ha ! whom do my peepers remark ? 

'T is Hebe with Jupiter's jug ; 
O no, 't is the pride of the Park, 

Fair Lady Elizabeth Mugg. 

ii. 
Why, beautiful nymph, do you close 

The curtain that fringes your eye ? 
Why veil in the clouds of repose 

The sun that should brighten our sky ? 
Perhaps jealous Venus has oiled 

Your hair with some opiate drug, 
Not choosing her charms should be foiled 

By Lady Elizabeth Mugg. 

trashy author.' " The sand and " filings of glass/' mentioned 
in the last stanza, are referable to the well-known verses of the 
poet apologising to a lady for having paid an unconscionably 
long morning visit ; and where, alluding to Time, he says, 

" All his sands are diamond sparks, 
That gUtter as they pass." 

Few men in society have more " gladdened life" than this 
poet. He now resides in Paris, and may thence make the 
grand tour without an interpreter — speaking, as he does, 
French, Italian, and German, as fluently as English. 



116 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 



III. 

But ah ! why awaken the blaze 

Those bright burning glasses contain, 
Whose lens with concentrated rays 

Proved fatal to old Drury Lane ? 
'T was all accidental, they cry, — 

Away with the flimsy humbug ! 
'T was fired by a flash from the eye 

Of Lady Elizabeth Mugg. 



IV. 

Thy glance can in us raise a flame, 

Then why should old Drury be free ? 
Our doom and its dome are the same, 

Both subject to beauty's decree. 
No candles the workmen consumed, 

When deep in the ruins they dug ; 
Thy flash still their progress illumed, 

Sweet Lady Elizabeth Mugg. 



THE BEAUTIFUL INCENDIARY. 117 



Thy face a rich fire-place displays : 

The mantel-piece marble — thy brows ; 
Thine eyes, are the bright beaming blaze ; 

Thy bib, which no trespass allows, 
The fender's tall barrier marks ; 

Thy tippet's the fire-quelling rug, 
Which serves to extinguish the sparks 

Of Lady Elizabeth Mugg. 



The Countess a lily appears, 

Whose tresses the pearl-drops emboss ; 
The Marchioness, blooming in years, 

A rose-bud enveloped in moss ; 
But thou art the sweet passion-flower, 

For who would not slavery hug, 
To pass but one exquisite hour 

In the arms of Elizabeth Mugg ? 



118 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 



VII. 

When at court, or some Dowager's rout, 

Her diamond aigrette meets our view, 
She looks like a glow-worm dressed out, 

Or tulips bespangled with dew. 
Her two lips denied to man's suit, 

Are shared with her favourite Pug ; 
What lord would not change with the brute, 

To live with Elizabeth Mugg ? 



Could the stage be a large vis-a-vis, 

Reserved for the polished and great, 
Where each happy lover might see 

The nymph he adores tete-a-tete ; 
No longer I'd gaze on the ground, 

And the load of despondency lug, 
For I 'd book myself all the year round, 

To ride with the sweet Lady Mugg. 



THE BEAUTIFUL INCENDIARY. 119 

IX. 

Yes, she in herself is a host, 

And if she were here all alone, 
Our house might nocturnally boast 

A bumper of fashion and ton. 
Again should it burst in a blaze, 

In vain would they ply Congreve's plug, 1 
For nought could extinguish the rays 

From the glance of divine Lady Mugg. 



O could I as Harlequin frisk, 
And thou be my Columbine fair, 

My wand should with one magic whisk 
Transport us to Hanover Square : 



1 " Congreve's plug." The late Sir William Congreve had 
made a model of Drury-Lane Theatre, to which was affixed an 
engine that, in the event of fire, was made to play from the 
stage into every box in the house. The writer, accompanied 
by Theodore Hook, went to see the model at Sir William's 
house in Cecil Street. "Now I'll duck Whitbread ! " said 
Hook, seizing the water-pipe whilst he spoke, and sending a 
torrent of water into the brewer's box. 



120 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

St. George's should lend us its shrine, 
The parson his shoulders might shrug, 

But a license should force him to join 
My hand in the hand of my Mugg. 



Court-plaster the weapons should tip, 

By Cupid shot down from above, 
Which, cut into spots for thy lip, 

Should still barb the arrows of love. 
The god who from others flies quick, 

With us should be slow as a slug ; 
As close as a leech he should stick 

To me and Elizabeth Mugg. 



For Time would, with us, 'stead of sand, 
Put filings of steel in his glass, 

To dry up the blots of his hand, 

And spangle life's page as they pass. 



THE BEAUTIFUL INCENDIARY. 121 

Since all flesh is grass ere 't is hay,i 

O may I in clover live snug, 
And when old Time mows me away, 

Be stacked with defunct Lady Mugg ! 



i 



See Byron, afterwards, in Bon Juan : — 

" For flesh is grass, which Time mows down to hay." 
But, as Johnson says of Dryden, u His known wealth was so 
great, he might borrow without any impeachment of his 
credit." 



" ' The Beautiful Incendiary,' by the Honourable W. Spen- 
cer, is also an imitation of great merit. The flashy, fashion- 
able, artificial style of this writer, with his confident and 
extravagant compliments, can scarcely be said to be parodied 
in such lines." — Edinburgh Review. 



FIRE AND ALE. 

BY M. G. L.i 
♦ 

" Omnia transfomiat sese in niiracula rerum." — Virgil. 



My palate is parched with Pierian thirst, 

Away to Parnassus I 'm beckoned ; 
List, warriors and dames, while my lay is rehearsed, 
I sing of the singe of Miss Drury the first, 

And the birth of Miss Drury the second. 

1 Matthew Gregory Lewis, commonly called Monk Lewis, 
from his once popular romance of that name. He was a good- 
hearted man, and, like too many of that fraternity, a dis- 
agreeable one — verbose, disputatious, and paradoxical. His 
Monk and Castle Spectre elevated him into fame ; and he 
continued to write ghost-stories till, following as he did in the 
wake of Mrs. Radcliff, he quite overstocked the market. 
Lewis visited his estates in Jamaica, and came back perfectly 
negro-bitten. He promulgated a new code of laws in the 






FIRE AND ALE. 123 

The Fire King, one day, rather amorous felt ; 

He mounted his hot copper filly ; 
His breeches and boots were of tin, and the belt 
Was made of cast iron, for fear it should melt 

With the heat of the copper colt's belly. 

island, for the government of his sable subjects : one may 
serve for a specimen : " Any slave who commits murder shall 
have his head shaved, and be confined three days and nights 
in a dark room." Upon occasion of printing these parodies, 
Monk Lewis said to Lady H., " Many of them are very 
fair, but mine is not at all like ; they have made me write 
burlesque, which I never do." u You don't know your own 
talent," answered the lady. 

Lewis aptly described himself, as to externals, in the verses 
affixed to his Monk, as having 

" A graceless form and dwarfish stature." 

He had, moreover, large grey eyes, thick features, and an 
inexpressive countenance. In talking, he had a disagreeable 
habit of drawing the fore-finger of his right hand across his 
right eyelid. He affected, in conversation, a sort of dandified, 
drawling tone ; young Harlowe, the artist, did the same. 
A foreigner who had but a slight knowledge of the English 
language might have concluded, from their cadences, that they 
were little better than fools — "just a born goose," as Terry 
the actor used to say. Lewis died on his passage homeward 
from Jamaica, owing to a dose of James's powders inju- 



124 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Sure never was skin half so scalding as his ! 

When an infant 't was equally horrid ; 
For the water, when he was baptised, gave a fizz, 
And bubbled and simmer'd and started off, whizz ! 

As soon as it sprinkled his forehead. 

! then there was glitter and fire in each eye, 

For two living coals were the symbols ; 
His teeth were calcined, and his tongue was so dry, 
It rattled against them, as though you should try 
To play the piano in thimbles. 

From his nostrils a lava sulphureous flows, 

Which scorches wherever it lingers ; 
A snivelling fellow he 's call'd by his foes, 
For he can't raise his paw up to blow his red nose, 
For fear it should blister his fingers. 

diciously administered by "his own mere motion." He 
wrote various \ lays, with various success : he had an admir- 
able notion of dramatic construction; but the goodness of his 
scenes and incidents was marred by the badness of his 
dialogue. 



FIRE AND ALE. 125 

His wig is of flames curling over his head, 

Well powderM with white smoking ashes ; 
He drinks gunpowder tea, melted sugar of lead, 
Cream of tartar, and dines on hot spice gingerbread, 
Which black from the oven he gnashes. 

Each fire-nymph his kiss from her countenance shields, 

'T would soon set her cheekbone a frying ; 
He spit in the tenter-ground near Spital-fields, 
And the hole that it burnt, and the chalk that it yields, 
Make a capital limekiln for drying. 

When he open'd his mouth, out there issued a blast, 

(Nota bene, I do not mean swearing), 
But the noise that it made, and the heat that it cast, 
I 've heard it from those who have seen it, surpass'd 
A shot manufactory flaring. 

He blazed, and he blazed, as he gallop'd to snatch 

His bride, little dreaming of danger ; 
His whip was a torch, and his spur was a match, 
And over the horse's left eye was a patch, 
To keep it from burning the manger. 



126 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

And who is the housemaid he means to enthral 

In his cinder-producing alliance ? 
'Tis Drury-Lane Playhouse, so wide, and so tall, 
Who, like other combustible ladies, must fall, 

If she cannot set sparks at defiance. 

On his warming-pan knee-pan he clattering roll'd, 

And the housemaid his hand would have taken, 
But his hand, like his passion, was too hot to hold, 
And she soon let it go, but her new ring of gold 
All melted, like butter or bacon ! 

Oh ! then she look'd sour, and indeed well she might, 

For Vinegar Yard was before her ; 
But, spite of her shrieks, the ignipotent knight, 
Enrobing the maid in a flame of gas light, 

To the skies in a sky-rocket bore her. 

Look ! look ! 't is the Ale King, so stately and starch, 

Whose votaries scorn to be sober ; 
He pops from his vat, like a cedar or larch ; 
Brown-stout is his doublet, he hops in his march, 

And froths at the mouth in October. 



FIRE AND ALE. 127 

His spear is a spigot, his shield is a bung ; 

He taps where the housemaid no more is, 
When lo ! at his magical bidding, upsprung 
A second Miss Drury, tall, tidy, and young, 

And sported in loco sororis. 

Back, lurid in air, for a second regale, 

The Cinder King, hot with desire, 
To Brydges Street hied ; but the Monarch of Ale, 
With uplifted spigot and faucet, and pail, 

Thus chided the Monarch of Fire : 

" Vile tyrant, beware of the ferment I brew ; 

I rule the roast here, dash the wig o' me ! 
If, spite of your marriage with Old Drury, you 
Come here with your tinderbox, courting the New, 

I '11 have you indicted for bigamy ! " 



u ' Fire and Ale,' by M. G. Lewis, exhibits not only a 
faithful copy of the spirited, loose, and flowing versification 
of that singular author, bat a very just representation of that 
mixture of extravagance and jocularity which has impressed 
most of his writings with the character of a sort of farcical 
horror." — Edinburgh Review. 



PLAYHOUSE MUSINGS. 

BY S. T. C.i 



' Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim 
Credebat libris 5 neque si male cesserat, usquam 
Decurrens alio, neque si bene." Hor. 



My pensive Public, wherefore look you sad ? 
I had a grandmother, she kept a donkey 
To carry to the mart her crockery ware, 
And when that donkey look'd me in the face, 
His face was sad ! and you are sad, my Public ! 

Joy should be yours : this tenth day of October 
Again assembles us in Drury Lane. 
Long wept my eye to see the timber planks 
That hid our ruins ; many a day I cried, 

1 S. T. Coleridge. 



PLAYHOUSE MUSINGS. 129 

Ah me ! I fear they never will rebuild it ! 

Till on one eve, one joyful Monday eve, 

As along Charles Street I prepared to walk, 

Just at the corner, by the pastrycook's, 

I heard a trowel tick against a brick. 

I look'd me up, and straight a parapet 

Uprose at least seven inches o'er the planks. 

Joy to thee, Drury ! to myself, I said : 

He of Blackfriars' Road, 1 who hymn'd thy downfall 

In loud Hosannahs, and who prophesied 

That flames, like those from prostrate Solyma, 

Would scorch the hand that ventured to rebuild thee, 

Has proved a lying prophet. From that hour, 

As leisure offer'd, close to Mr. Spring's 

Box-office door, I 've stood and eyed the builders. 

They had a plan to render less their labours ; 

Workmen in olden times would mount a ladder 

With hodded heads, but these stretch' d forth a pole 

From the wall's pinnacle, they placed a pulley 

1 " He of Blackfriars' Road," viz. the late Rev. Rowland 
Hill, who is said to have preached a sermon congratulating 
his congregation on the catastrophe. 

9 



130 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Athwart the pole, a rope athwart the pulley ; 
To this a basket dangled ; mortar and bricks 
Thus freighted, swung securely to the top, 
And in the empty basket workmen twain 
Precipitate, unhurt, accosted earth. 

Oh ! 't was a goodly sound, to hear the people 
Who watch'd the work, express their various thoughts ! 
While some believed it never would be finish'd, 
Some, on the contrary, believed it would. 

I Ve heard our front that faces Drury Lane 
Much criticised ; they say 't is vulgar brick-work, 
A mimic manufactory of floor-cloth. 
One of the morning papers wish'd that front 
Cemented like the front in Brydges-Street ; 
As it now looks, they call it Wyatt's Mermaid, 
A handsome woman with a fish's tail. 

White is the steeple of St. Bride's in Fleet-Street : 
The Albion (as its name denotes) is white : 
Morgan and Saunders' shop for chairs and tables 
Gleams like a snow-ball in the setting sun ; 



PLAYHOUSE MUSINGS. 131 

White is Whitehall. But not St. Bride's in Fleet-Street, 
The spotless Albion, Morgan, no, nor Saunders, 
Nor white Whitehall, is white as Dr.ury's face. 

Oh, Mr. Whitbread ! * fie upon you, sir ! 
I think you should have built a colonnade ; 
When tender Beauty, looking for her couch, 
Protrudes her gloveless hand, perceives the shower, 
And draws the tippet closer round her throat, 
Perchance her coach stands half a dozen off, 
And, ere she mounts the step, the oozing mud 
Soaks through her pale kid slipper. On the morrow, 
She coughs at breakfast, and her gruff papa 
Cries, " There you go ! this comes of playhouses ! " 
To build no portico is penny wise : 
Heaven grant it prove not in the end pound foolish ! 

Hail to thee, Drury ! Queen of Theatres ! 
What is the Regency in Tottenham Street, 

1 " Oh, Mr. Whitbread! " Sir William Grant, then Master 
of the Rolls, repeated this passage aloud at a Lord Mayor-'? 
dinner, to the no small astonishment of the writer, wfc 
happened to sit within ear-shot. 



132 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

The Royal Amphitheatre of Arts, 

Astley's, Olympic, or the Sans Pareil, 

Compared with thee ? Yet when I view thee push'd 

Back from the narrow street that christened thee, 

I know not why they call thee Drury Lane. 

Amid the freaks that modern fashion sanctions, 
It grieves me much to see live animals 
Brought on the stage. Grimaldi has his rabbit, 
Laurent his cat, and Bradbury his pig ; 
Fie on such tricks ! Johnson, the machinist 
Of former Drury, imitated life 
Quite to the life. The elephant in Blue Beard, 
StufT'd by his hand, wound round his little proboscis, 
As spruce as he who roar'd in Padmanaba. 1 

1 " Padmanaba/' viz., in a pantomime called Harlequin in 
Padmanaba. This elephant, some years afterwards, was ex- 
hibited over Exeter 'Change, where, the reader will remember, 
it was found necessary to destroy the poor animal by dis- 
charges of musketry. When he made his entrance in the 
pantomime above mentioned, Johnson the machinist of the 
rival house exclaimed, " I should be very sorry if I could not 
make a better elephant than that ! " Johnson was right : we 
go to the theatre to be pleased with the skill of the imitator, 
and not to look at the reality. 



PLAYHOUSE MUSINGS. 133 

Nought born on earth should die. On hackney stands 

I reverence the coachman who cries, " Gee," 

And spares the lash. When I behold a spider 

Prey on a fly, a magpie on a worm, 

Or view a butcher with horn-handled knife 

Slaughter a tender lamb as dead as mutton, 

Indeed, indeed, I 'm very, very sick ! 

[Exit hastily. 



" Mr. Coleridge will not, we fear, be as much entertained 
as we were with his ' Playhouse Musings/ which begin with 
characteristic pathos and simplicity, and put us much in mind 
of the affecting story of old Poulter's mare." — Quarterly 
Review. 

" { Playhouse Musings/ by Mr. Coleridge, a piece which is 
unquestionably Lakish, though we cannot say that we recog- 
nise in it any of the peculiar traits of that powerful and 
misdirected genius whose name it has borrowed. We rather 
think, however, that the tuneful brotherhood will consider it 
as a respectable eclogue." — Edinburgh Review. 



DRURY LANE HUSTINGS. 
& Heto ^alfpent™ Stella*. 

BY A PIC-NIC POET. 



" This is the very age of promise : To promise is most courtly and fashionable. 
Performance is a kind of will or testament, which argues a great sickness in 
his judgment that makes it." — Timon of Athens. 



[To be sung by Mr. Johnstone, in the character of Looney 

M'TWOLTER.] 

I. 
Mr. Jack, your address, says the Prompter to me, 
So I gave him my card — no, that a'nt it, says he ; 
'Tis your public address. Oh! says I, never fear, 
If address you are bother'd for, only look here. 

[Puts on hat affectedly. 
Tol de rol lol, &c. 






DRURY LANE HUSTINGS. 135 

II. 

With Drury's for sartin we '11 never have done, 
We Ve built up another, and yet there 's but one ; 
The old one was best, yet I 'd say, if I durst, 
The new one is better — the last is the first. 

Tol de rol, &c. 



in. 
These pillars are call'd by a Frenchified word, 
A something that 's jumbled of antique and verd ; 
The boxes may show us some verdant antiques, 
Some old harridans who beplaster their cheeks. 

Tol de rol, &c. 



IV. 

Only look how high Tragedy, Comedy, stick, 
Lest their rivals, the horses, should give them a kick ! 
If you will not descend when our authors beseech ye, 
You '11 stop there for life, for I 'm sure they can't 
reach ye. 

Tol de rol, &c. 



136 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

V. 

Each one shilling god within reach of a nod is, 
And plain are the charms of each gallery goddess — 
You, Brandy-faced Moll, don't be looking askew, 
When I talk'd of a goddess I didn't mean you. 

Tol de rol, &c. 



i 



VI. 

Our stage is so prettily fashion' d for viewing, 
The whole house can see what the whole house is doing : 
'Tis just like the Hustings, we kick up a bother; 
But saying is one thing, and doing 's another. 

Tol de rol, &c. 



VII. 

We 've many new houses, and some of them rum ones, 
But the newest of all is the new House of Commons ; 
'Tis a rickety sort of a bantling, I 'm told, 
It will die of old age when it 's seven years old. 

Tol de rol, &c. 



DRURY LANE HUSTINGS. 137 

VIII. 

As I don't know on whom the election will fall, 
I move in return for returning them all ; 
But for fear Mr. Speaker my meaning should miss, 
The house that I wish 'em to sit in is this. 

Tol de rol, &c. 

IX. 

Let us cheer our great Commoner, but for whose aid 
We all should have gone with short commons to bed ; 
And since he has saved all the fat from the fire, 
I move that the house be calPd Whitbread's Entire. 

Tol de rol, &c. 



" l A New Halfpenny Ballad/ by a Pic-Nic Poet, is a good 
imitation of what was not worth imitating — that tremendous 
mixture of vulgarity, nonsense, impudence, and miserable 
puns, which, under the name of humorous songs, rouses our 
polite audiences to a far higher pitch of rapture than Garrick 
or Siddons ever was able to inspire." — Edinburgh Review, 



ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS. 

TRANSLATED BY DR. B. » 



Lege, Dick, Lege ! Joseph Andrews. 



[To be recited hy the Translator's Son.] 
Away, fond dupes ! who, smit with sacred lore, 
Mosaic dreams in Genesis explore, 
Doat with Copernicus, or darkling stray 
With Newton, Ptolemy, or Tycho Brahe ! 

1 Dr. Busby. This gentleman gave living recitations of his 
translation of Lucretius, with tea and bread-and-butter. He 
sent in a real Address to the Drur)'-Lane Committee, which 
was realty rejected. The present imitation professes to be 
recited by the translator's son. The poet here, again, was a 
prophet. A few evenings after the opening of the Theatre, 
Dr. Busby sat with his son in one of the stage-boxes. The 
latter, to the astonishment of the audience, at the end of the 
play, stepped from the box upon the stage, with his father's 



ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS. 139 

To you I sing not, for I sing of truth, 
Primeval systems, and creation's youth ; 
Such as of old, with magic wisdom fraught, 
Inspired Lucretius to the Latians taught. 

I sing how casual bricks, in airy climb, 
Encounter'd casual cow-hair, casual lime ; 
How rafters, borne through wondering clouds elate, 
Kiss'd in their slope blue elemental slate, 
Clasp' d solid beams in chance-directed fury, 
And gave to birth our renovated Drury. 

Thee, son of Jove ! whose sceptre was confess'd, 
Where fair iEolia springs from Tethys' breast ; 

real rejected address in his hand, and began to recite it as 
follows : — 

" When energising objects men pursue, 
What are the miracles they cannot do ? " 

Raymond, the stage-manager, accompanied by a constable, at 
this moment walked upon the stage, and handed away the 
juvenile dilettante performer. 

The doctor's classical translation was thus noticed in one of 
the newspapers of the day, in the column of births : — " Yes- 
terday, at his house in Queen Anne Street, Dr. Busby of a 
still-born Lucretius." 



140 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Thence on Olympus, mid celestials placed, 

God of the Winds, and Ether's boundless waste — 

Thee I invoke ! Oh puff my bold design, 

Prompt the bright thought, and swell th' harmonious 

line ; 
Uphold my pinions, and my verse inspire 
With Winsor's 1 patent gas, or wind of fire, 
In whose pure blaze thy embryo form enrolled, 
The dark enlightens, and enchafes the cold. 

1 "Winsor's patent gas" — at that time in its infancy. 
The first place illumined by it was the Carlton-house side of 
Pall Mall ; the second, Bishopsgate Street. The writer at- 
tended a lecture given by the inventor : the charge of admit- 
tance was three shillings, but, as the inventor was about to 
apply to parliament, members of both houses were admitted 
gratis. The writer and a fellow-jester assumed the parts of 
senators at a short notice. " Members of parliament ! " was 
their important ejaculation at the door of entrance. " What 
places, gentlemen? " " Old Sarum and Bridgewater." " Walk 
in, gentlemen." Luckily, the real Simon Pures did not 
attend. This Pall Mall illumination was further noticed in 
Horace in London : — 

" And Winsor lights, with flame of gas, 
Home, to King's Place, his mother." 






ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS. 141 

But, while I court thy gifts, be mine to shun 
The deprecated prize Ulysses won ; 
Who, sailing homeward from thy breezy shore, 
The prison'd winds in skins of parchment bore. 
Speeds the fleet bark, till o'er the billowy green 
The azure heights of Ithaca are seen ; 
But while with favouring gales her way she wins, 
His curious comrades ope the mystic skins ; 
When, lo ! the rescued winds, with boisterous sweep, 
Roar to the clouds and lash the rocking deep ; 
Heaves the smote vessel in the howling blast, 
Splits the stretch'd sail, and cracks the tottering mast. 
Launch'd on a plank, the buoyant hero rides, 
Where ebon Afric stems the sable tides, 
While his duck'd comrades o'er the ocean fly, 
And sleep not in the whole skins they untie. 

So, when to raise the wind some lawyer tries, 
Mysterious skins of parchment meet our eyes ; 
On speeds the smiling suit — " Pleas of our Lord 
The King " shine sable on the wide record ; 



142 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Nods the prunella' d bar, attorneys smile, 

And syren jurors flatter to beguile ; 

Till stript — nonsuited — he is doom'd to toss 

In legal shipwreck and redeemless loss ! 

Lucky, if, like Ulysses, he can keep 

His head above the waters of the deep. 



iEolian monarch ! Emperor of Puffs ! 
We modern sailors dread not thy rebuffs ; 
See to thy golden shore promiscuous come 
Quacks for the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb : 
Fools are their bankers — a prolific line, 
And every mortal malady 's a mine. 
Each sly Sangrado, with his poisonous pill, 
Flies to the printer's devil with his bill, 
Whose Midas touch can gild his ass's ears, 
And load a knave with folly's rich arrears. 
And lo ! a second miracle is thine, 
For sloe -juice water stands transformed to wine. 
Where Day and Martin's patent blacking roll'd, 
Burst from the vase Pactolian streams of gold ; 



ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS. 143 

Laugh the sly wizards, glorying in their stealth, 
Quit the black art, and loll in lazy wealth. 
See Britain's Algerines, the lottery fry, 
Win annual tribute by the annual lie ! 
Aided by thee — but whither do I stray ? — 
Court, city, borough, own thy sovereign sway ; 
An age of puffs an age of gold succeeds, 
And windy bubbles are the spawn it breeds. 

If such thy power, O hear the Muse's prayer ! 
Swell thy loud lungs and wave thy wings of air ; 
Spread, viewless giant, all thy arms of mist 
Like windmill-sails to bring the poet grist ; 
As erst thy roaring son, with eddying gale, 
"YVhirl'd Orithyia from her native vale — 
So, while Lucretian wonders I rehearse, 
Augusta's sons shall patronise my verse. 

I sing of Atoms, whose creative brain, 
With eddying impulse, built new Drury Lan^ ; 
Not to the labours of subservient man, 
To no young Wyatt appertains the plan — 



144 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

We mortals stalk, like horses in a mill, 
Impassive media of atomic will ; 
Ye stare ! then Truth's broad talisman discern — 
'T is Demonstration speaks — attend, and learn ! 

From floating elements in chaos hurl'd, 
Self-form'd of atoms, sprang the infant world : 
No great First Cause inspired the happy plot, 
But all was matter — and no matter what. 
Atoms, attracted by some law occult, 
Settling in spheres, the globe was the result : 
Pure child of Chance, which still directs the ball, 
As rotatory atoms rise or fall. 
In ether launch'd, the peopled bubble floats, 
A mass of particles and confluent motes, 
So nicely poised, that if one atom flings 
Its weight away, aloft the planet springs, 
And wings its course through realms of boundless 

space, 
Outstripping comets in eccentric race. 
Add but one atom more, it sinks outright 
Down to the realms of Tartarus and night. 



ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS. 145 

What waters melt or scorching fires consume, 
In different forms their being reassume : 
Hence can no change arise, except in name, 
For weight and substance ever are the same. 

Thus with the flames that from old Drury rise 
Its elements primeval sought the skies ; 
There pendulous to wait the happy hour 
When new attractions should restore their power ; 
So, in this procreant theatre elate, 
Echoes unborn their future life await ; 
Here embryo sounds in ether lie conceal'd, 
Like words in northern atmosphere congeaPd. 
Here many a foetus laugh and half encore 
Clings to the roof, or creeps along the floor ; 
By puffs concipient some in ether flit, 
And soar in bravos from the thundering pit ; 
Some forth on ticket-nights 1 from tradesmen break, 
To mar the actor they design to make ; 

1 " Ticket-nights." This phrase is probably unintelligible to 
the untheatrical portion of the community, which may now 

10 



146 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

While some this mortal life abortive miss, 
Crush'd by a groan, or strangled by a hiss. 
So, when " Dog's-meat" re-echoes through the streets, 
Rush sympathetic dogs from their retreats, 
Beam with bright blaze their supplicating eyes, 
Sink their hind-legs, ascend their joyful cries ; 
Each, wild with hope, and maddening to prevail, 
Points the pleased ear, and wags the expectant tail. 

Ye fallen bricks ! in Drury's fire calcined, 
Since doomM to slumber, couch'd upon the wind, 
Sweet was the hour, when, tempted by your freaks, 
Congenial trowels smooth'd your yellow cheeks. 
Float dulcet serenades upon the ear, 
Bends every atom from its ruddy sphere, 

be said to be all the world except the actors. Ticket-nights 
are those whereon the inferior actors club for a benefit : each 
distributes as many tickets of admission as he is able among 
his friends. A motley assemblage is the consequence ; and as 
each actor is encouraged by his own set, who are not in 
general play-going people, the applause comes (as Chesterfield 
says of Pope's attempts at wit) " generall)' unseasonably, and 
too often unsuccessfully." 



ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS. 147 

Twinkles each eye, and, peeping from its veil, 
Marks in the adverse crowd its destined male. 
The oblong beauties clap their hands of grit, 
And brick-dust titterings on the bre'ezes flit ; 
Then down they rush in amatory race, 
Their dusty bridegrooms eager to embrace.. 
Some choose old lovers, some decide for new, 
But each, when fix'd, is to her station true. 
Thus various bricks are made, as tastes invite — 
The red, the gray, the dingy, or the white. 

Perhaps some half-baked rover, frank and free, 
To alien beauty bends the lawless knee, 
But of unhallow'd fascinations sick, 
Soon quits his Cyprian for his married brick ; 
The Dido atom calls and scolds in vain, 
No crisp jEneas soothes the widow's pain. 

So in Cheapside, what time Aurora peeps, 
A mingled noise of dustmen, milk, and sweeps, 
Falls on the housemaid's ear : amazed she stands, 
Then opes the door with cinder-sabled hands, 



148 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

And " Matches " calls. The dustman, bubbled flat, 
Thinks 'tis for him, and doffs his fan-tail'd hat*, 
The milkman, whom her second cries assail, 
With sudden sink unyokes the clinking pail ; 
Now louder grown, by turns she screams and weeps - 
Alas ! her screaming only brings the sweeps. 
Sweeps but put out — she wants to raise a flame, 
And calls for matches, but 'tis still the same. 
Atoms and housemaids ! mark the moral true — 
If once ye go astray, no match for you ! 

As atoms in one mass united mix, 
So bricks attraction feel for kindred bricks ; 
Some in the cellar view, perchance, on high, 
Fair chimney chums on beds of mortar lie ; 
Enamour'd of the sympathetic clod, 
Leaps the red bridegroom to the labourer's hod : 
And up the ladder bears the workman, taught 
To think he bears the bricks — mistaken thought ! 
A proof behold : if near the top they find 
The nymphs or broken-corner'd or unkind, 
Back to the base, " resulting with a bound," 
They bear their bleeding carriers to the ground ! 



ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS. 149 

So legends tell along the lofty hill 
Paced the twin heroes, gallant Jack and Jill ; 
On trudged the Gemini to reach the rail 
That shields the well's top from the expectant pail, 
When, ah ! Jack falls ; and, rolling in the rear, 
Jill feels the attraction of his kindred sphere ; 
Head over heels begins his toppling track, 
Throws sympathetic somersets with Jack, 
And at the mountain's base bobbs plump against him, 
whack ! 

Ye living atoms, who unconscious sit, 
Jumbled by chance in gallery, box, and pit, 
For you no Peter opes the fabled door, 
No churlish Charon plies the shadowy oar ; 
Breathe but a space, and Boreas' casual sweep 
Shall bear your scatter'd corses o'er the deep, 
To gorge the greedy elements, and mix 
With water, marl, and clay, and stones, and sticks ; 
While, charged with fancied souls, sticks, stones, and 

clay, 
Shall take your seats, and hiss or clap the play. 



150 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

O happy age ! when convert Christians read 
No sacred writings but the Pagan creed — 
O happy age ! when, spurning Newton's dreams, 
Our poets' sons recite Lucre tian themes, 
Abjure the idle systems of their youth, 
And turn again to atoms and to truth ; — 
O happier still ! when England's dauntless dames, 
Awed by no chaste alarms, no latent shames, 
The bard's fourth book unblushingly peruse, 
And learn the rampant lessons of the stews ! 

All hail, Lucretius ! renovated sage ! 
Unfold the modest mystics of thy page ; 
Return no more to thy sepulchral shelf, 
But live, kind bard — that I may live myself ! 



"In one single point the parodist has failed — there is a 
certain Dr. Busby, whose supposed address is a translation 
called ' Architectural Atoms, intended to be recited by the 
translator's son.' Unluckily, however, for the wag who had 
prepared this fun, the genuine serious absurdity of Dr. Busby 
and his son has cast all his humour into the shade. The 



ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS. 151 

doctor from the boxes, and the son from the stage, have 
actually- endeavoured, it seems, to recite addresses, which 
they call monologues and unalogues ; and which, for extrava- 
gant folly, tumid meanness, and vulgar affectation, set all 
the powers of parody at utter defiance." — Quarterly Review. 

11 Of ' Architectural Atoms,' translated by Dr. Busby, we 
can say very little more than that they appear to us to be far 
more capable of combining into good poetry than the few 
lines we were able to read of the learned doctor's genuine 
address in the newspapers. They might pass, indeed, for a 
very tolerable imitation of Darwin." — Edinburgh Review. 



THEATRICAL ALARM-BELL. 

BY THE EDITOR OE THE M. P.* 



1 Bounce, Jupiter, bounce ! " O'Haka. 



Ladies and Gentlemen, 
As it is now the universally-admitted, and indeed 
pretty -generally -suspected, aim of Mr. Whitbread and 
the infamous, bloodthirsty, and, in fact, illiberal fac- 
tion to which he belongs, to burn to the ground this 

1 Mornixg- Post. — This journal was, at the period in ques- 
tion, rather remarkable for the use of the figure called by the 
rhetoricians catachresis. The Bard of Avon may be quoted in 
justification of its adoption, when he writes of taking arms 
against a sea, and seeking a bubble in the mouth of a cannon. 
The Morning Post, in the year 1812, congratulated its readers 
upon having stripped off Cobbett's mask and discovered his 
cloven foot ; adding, that it was high time to give the hydra- 
head of Faction a rap on the knuckles ! 



THEATRICAL ALARM-BELL. 153 

free and happy Protestant city, and establish himself 
in St. James's Palace, his fellow committee-men have 
thought it their duty to watch the principles of a 
theatre built under his auspices. The information 
they have received from undoubted authority — par- 
ticularly from an old fruit-woman who has turned 
king's evidence, and whose name, for obvious reasons, 
we forbear to mention, though we have had it some 
weeks in our possession — has induced them to intro- 
duce various reforms — not such reforms as the vile 
faction clamour for, meaning thereby revolution, but 
such reforms as are necessary to preserve the glorious 
constitution of the only free, happy, and prosperous 
country now left upon the face of the earth. From 
the valuable and authentic source above alluded to, 
we have learnt that a sanguinary plot has been 
formed by some united Irishmen, combined with a 
gang of Luddites, and a special committee sent over 
by the Pope at the instigation of the beastly Corsican 
fiend, for destroying all the loyal part of the audience 
on the anniversary of that deeply-to-be -abhorred and 
highly-to-be-blamed stratagem, the Gunpowder Plot, 



154 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

which falls this year on Thursday the fifth of Novem- 
ber. The whole is under the direction of a delegated 
committee of O. P.'s, whose treasonable exploits at 
Covent Garden you all recollect, and all of whom 
would have been hung from the chandeliers at that 
time, but for the mistaken lenity of government. At 
a given signal, a well-known O. P. was to cry out 
from the gallery, " Nosey ! Music ! " whereupon all 
the O. P.'s were to produce from their inside -pockets 
a long pair of shears, edged with felt, to prevent 
their making any noise, manufactured expressly by a 
wretch at Birmingham, one of Mr. Brougham's evi- 
dences, and now in custody. With these they were 
to cut off the heads of all the loyal N. P.'s in the 
house, without distinction of sex or age. At the 
signal, similarly given, of " Throw him over ! " which 
it now appears always alluded to the overthrow of our 
never-sufficiently-enongh-to-be-deeply-and-universally- 
to - be - venerated constitution, all the heads of the 
N. P.'s were to be thrown at the fiddlers, to prevent 
their appearing in evidence, or perhaps as a false and 
illiberal insinuation that they have no heads of their 



THEATRICAL ALARM-BELL. 155 

own. All that we know of the further designs of 
these incendiaries is, that they are by-a-great-deal- 
too-much too-horrible-to-be-mentioned. 

The Manager has acted with his usual promptitude 
on this trying occasion. He has contracted for 300 
tons of gunpowder, which are at this moment placed 
in a small barrel under the pit ; and a descendant of 
Guy Faux, assisted by Col. Congreve, has undertaken 
to blow up the house, when necessary, in so novel 
and ingenious a manner, that every O. P. shall be 
annihilated, while not a whisker of the N. P.'s shall 
be singed. This strikingly displays the advantages of 
loyalty and attachment to government. Several other 
hints have been taken from the theatrical regulations 
of the not-a-bit-the-less-on-that-account-to-be-univer- 
sally-execrated monster Bonaparte. A park of artil- 
lery, provided with chain-shot, is to be stationed on 
the stage, and play upon the audience, in case of any 
indication of misplaced applause or popular discontent 
(which accounts for the large space between the cur- 
tain and the lamps) ; and the public will participate 
our satisfaction in learning that the indecorous custom 



156 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

of standing up with the hat on is to be abolished, as 
the Bow-street officers are provided with daggers, and 
have orders to stab all such persons to the heart, and 
send their bodies to Surgeons' Hall. Gentlemen who 
cough are only to be slightly wounded. Fruit-women 
bawling " Bill of the play ! " are to be forthwith shot, 
for which purpose soldiers will be stationed in the 
slips, and ball-cartridge is to be served out with the 
lemonade. If any of the spectators happen to sneeze 
or spit, they are to be transported for life ; and any 
person who is so tall as to prevent another seeing, is 
to be dragged out and sent on board the tender, or, by 
an instrument taken out of the pocket of Procrustes, 
to be forthwith cut shorter, either at the head or foot, 
according as his own convenience may dictate. 

Thus, ladies and gentlemen, have the committee, 
through my medium, set forth the not-in-a-hurry -to-be- 
paralleled plan they have adopted for preserving order 
and decorum within the walls of their magnificent 
edifice. Nor have they, while attentive to their own 
concerns, by any means overlooked those of the cities 
of London and Westminster. Finding, on enumera- 



THEATRICAL ALARM-BELL. 157 

tion, that they have with a with-two-hands-and-one- 
tongue-to-be-applauded liberality, contracted for more 
gunpowder than they want, they have parted with 
the surplus to the mattock-carrying and hustings- 
hammering high bailiff of Westminster, who has, with 
his own shovel, dug a large hole in the front of the 
parish-church of St. Paul, Covent-garden, that, upon 
the least symptom of ill-breeding in the mob at the* 
general election, the whole of the market may be 
blown into the air. This, ladies and gentlemen, may 
at first make provisions rise, but we pledge the credit 
of our theatre that they will soon fall again, and 
people be supplied, as usual, with vegetables, in the 
in-general - strewed - with -cabbage - stalks - but-on-Satur- 
day-night-lighted-up-with-lamps market of Covent Gar- 
den. 

I should expatiate more largely on the other advan- 
tages of the glorious constitution of these by-the -whole - 
of-Europe-envied realms, but I am called away to take 
an account of the ladies, and other artifical flowers 
at a fashionable rout, of which a full and particular 
account will hereafter appear. For the present, my 



158 



REJECTED ADDRESSES. 



fashionable intelligence is scanty, on account of the 
opening of Drury Lane ; and the ladies and gentlemen 
who honour me with their attention will not be sur- 
prised if they find nothing under my usual head ! ! 



THE THEATRE. 

BY THE REV. G. C. i 



" Nil intentatum nostri liquere poetse, 
Nee minimum meruere decus, vestigia Graeca 
Ausi deserere, et celebrare domestica facta." — Hor. 



A PREFACE OF APOLOGIES. 
If the following poem should be fortunate enough to 
be selected for the opening address, a few words of 
explanation may be deemed necessary, on my part, to 
avert invidious misrepresentation. The animadversion 

1 The Rev. George Crabbe. The writer's first interview 
with this poet, who may be designated Pope in worsted stock- 
ings, took place at William Spencer's villa at Petersham, 
close to what that gentleman called his gold-fish pond, though 
it was scarcely three feet in diameter, throwing up a jet d'eau 
like a thread. The venerable bard, seizing both the hands of 
his satirist, exclaimed with a good-humored laugh, " Ah ! my 
old enemy, how do you do ? " In the course of conversation, 



160 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

I have thought it right to make on the noise created 
by tuning the orchestra, will, I hope, give no lasting 

he expressed great astonishment at his popularity in London ; 
adding, " In my own village they think nothing of me." The 
subject happening to be the inroads of time upon beauty, the 
writer quoted the following lines : — 



' Six years had pass'd, and forty ere the six, 
When Time began to play his usual tricks : 
My locks, once comely in a virgin's sight, 
Locks of pure brown, now felt th' encroaching white 5 
Gradual each day I liked my horses less, 
My dinner more — I learnt to play at chess." 






" That's very good!" cried the bard; — " whose is it?" 
"Your own." "Indeed! hah! well, I had quite forgotten 
it." Was this affectation, or was it not ? In sooth, he seemed 
to push simplicity to puerility. This imitation contained in 
manuscript the following lines, after describing certain Sun- 
day newspaper critics who were supposed to be present at a 
new play, and who w T ere rather heated in their politics : — 

" Hard is his task who edits — thankless job ! 
A Sunday journal for the factious mob : 
With bitter paragraph and caustic jest, 
He gives to turbulence the day of rest ; 
Condemn'd, this week, rash rancour to instil, 
Or thrown aside, the next, for one who will : 
Alike undone or if he praise or rail 
(For this affects his safety, that his sale), 
He sinks at last, in luckless lhnbo set, 
If loud for libel, and if dumb for debt." 

They were, however, never printed ; being, on reflection, 
considered too serious for the occasion. 

It is not a little extraordinary that Crabbe, who could write 



THE THEATRE. 161 

remorse to any of the gentlemen employed in the 

band. It is to be desired that they would keep their 

instruments ready tuned, and strike off at once. This 

would be an accommodation to many well-meaning 

persons who frequent the theatre, who, not being blest 

with the ear of St. Cecilia, mistake the tuning for the 

overture, and think the latter concluded before it is 

begun. 

1 ' one fiddle will 



Give, half-ashamed, a tiny flourish still," 

was originally written " one hautboy will ; " but, hav- 
ing providentially been informed, when this poem was 
upon the point of being sent off, that there is but one 
hautboy in the band, I averted the storm of popular 
and managerial indignation from the head of its 
blower : as it now stands, " one fiddle " among many, 

with such vigour, should descend to such lines as the follow- 
ing : — 

" Something had happen'd wrong about a bill 
Which was not drawn with true mercantile skill ; 
So, to amend it, I was told to go 
And seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co." 

Surely " Emanuel Jennings," compared with the above, 
rises to sublimity. 

11 



162 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

the faulty individual will, I hope, escape detection. 
The story of the flying play-bill is calculated to ex- 
pose a practice much too common, of pinning play- 
bills to the cushions insecurely, and frequently, I 
fear, not pinning them at all. If these lines save one 
play-bill only from the fate I have recorded, I shall 
not deem my labour ill employed. The concluding 
episode of Patrick Jennings glances at the boorish 
fashion of wearing the hat in the one-shilling gallery. 
Had Jennings thrust his between his feet at the com- 
mencement of the play, he might have leaned forward 
with impunity, and the catastrophe I relate would not 
have occurred. The line of handkerchiefs formed to 
enable him to recover his loss, is purposely so cross- 
ed in texture and materials as to mislead the reader in 
respect to the real owner of any one of them. For, 
in the satirical view of life and manners which I 
occasionally present, my clerical profession has 
taught me how extremely improper it would be, by 
any allusion, however slight, to give any uneasiness, 
however trivial, to any individual, however foolish or 

wicked. 

G. C. 






THE THEATRE. 



Interior of a Theatre described. — Pit gradually fills. — The Check-taker. — 
Pit full. — The Orchestra tuned. — One fiddle rather dilatory. — Is re- 
proved — and repents. — Evolutions of a Play-bill. — Its final settlement 
on the Spikes. — The Gods taken to task — and why. — Motley Group of 
Play-goers. — Holywell Street, St. Pancras. — Emanuel Jennings binds 
his Son apprentice — not in London — and why. — Episode of the Hat. 

'T is sweet to view, from half-past five to six, 
Our long wax-candles, with short cotton wicks, 
Touch' d by the lamp -lighter's Promethean art, 
Start into light, and make the lighter start ; 
To see red Phoebus through the gallery-pane 
Tinge with his beam the beams of Drury Lane ; 
While gradual parties fill our widen'd pit, 
And gape, and gaze, and wonder, ere they sit. 

At first, while vacant seats give choice and ease, 
Distant or near, they settle where they please ; 



164 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

But when the multitude contracts the span, 
And seats are rare, they settle where they can. 

Now the full benches to late -comers doom 
No room for standing, miscall'd standing room. 

Hark ! the check-taker moody silence breaks, 
And bawling " Pit full ! " gives the check he takes ; 
Yet onward still the gathering numbers cram, 
Contending crowders shout the frequent damn, 
And all is bustle, squeeze, row, jabbering, and jam. 

See to their desks Apollo's sons repair — 
Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair ! 
In unison their various tones to tune, 
Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon ; 
In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute, 
Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute, 
Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp, 
Winds the French-horn, and twangs the tingling harp ; 
Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in, 
Attunes to order the chaotic din. 



THE THEATRE. 165 

Now all seems hush'd — but, no, one fiddle will 
Give, half-ashamed, a tiny flourish still. 
Foil'd in his crash, the leader of the clan 
Reproves with frowns the dilatory man : 
Then on his candlestick thrice taps his bow, 
Nods a new signal, and away they go. 

Perchance, while pit and gallery cry, " Hats off! " 
And awed Consumption checks his chided cough, 
Some giggling daughter of the Queen of Love 
Drops, reft of pin, her play-bill from above : 
Like Icarus, while laughing galleries clap, 
Soars, ducks, and dives in air the printed scrap ; 
But, wiser far than he, combustion fears, 
And, as it flies, eludes the chandeliers ; 
Till, sinking gradual, with repeated twirl, 
It settles, curling, on a fiddler's curl ; 
Who from his powder' d pate the intruder strikes, 
And, for mere malice, sticks it on the spikes. 

Say, why these Babel strains from Babel tongues ? 
Who 's that calls " Silence ! " with such leathern lungs ? 



166 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

He who, in quest of quiet, " Silence ! " hoots, 
Is apt to make the hubbub he imputes. 

What various swains our motley walls contain ! — 
Fashion from Moorfields, honour from Chick Lane ; 
Bankers from Paper Buildings here resort, 
Bankrupts from Golden Square and Riches Court ; 
From the Haymarket canting rogues in grain, 
Gulls from the Poultry, sots from Water Lane ; 
The lottery-cormorant, the auction-shark, 
The full-price master, and the half-price clerk ; 
Boys who long linger at the gallery-door, 
With pence twice five — they want but twopence more ; 
Till some Samaritan the twopence spares, 
And sends them jumping up the gallery-stairs. 

Critics we boast who ne'er their malice balk, 
But talk their minds — we wish they'd mind their talk ; 
Big-worded bullies, who by quarrels live — 
Who give the lie, and tell the lie they give ; 
Jews from St. Mary Axe, for jobs so waiy, 
That for old clothes they 'd even axe St. Mary ; 



THE THEATRE. 167 

And bucks with pockets empty as their pate, 
Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait ; 
Who oft, when we our house lock up, carouse 
With tippling tipstaves in a lock-up house. 

Yet here, as elsewhere, Chance can joy bestow, 
Where scowling Fortune seemM to threaten woe. 

John Richard William Alexander Dwyer 
Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire ; 
But when John Dwyer listed in the Blues, 
Emanuel Jennings polish'd Stubbs's shoes. 
Emanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy 
Up as a corn-cutter — a safe employ ; 
In Holywell Street, St. Pancras, he was bred 
(At number twenty-seven, it is said), 
Facing the pump, and near the Granby's Head : 
He would have bound him to some shop in town, 
But with a premium he could not come down. 
Pat was the urchin's name — a red-hair'd youth, 
Fonder of purl and skittle-grounds than truth. 



168 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Silence, ye gods ! to keep your tongues in awe, 
The Muse shall tell an accident she saw. 

Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat, 
But, leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat : 
Down from the gallery the beaver flew, 
And spurn'd the one to settle in the two. 
How shall he act ? Pay at the gallery-door 
Two shillings for what cost, when new, but four ? 
Or till half price, to save his shilling, wait, 
And gain his hat again at half-past eight ? 
Now while his fears anticipate a thief, 
John Mullins whispers, " Take my handkerchief." 
" Thank you," cries Pat ; " but one won't make a 

line." 
" Take mine," cried Wilson ; and cried Stokes, " Take 

mine." 
A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties, 
Where Spitalflelds with real India vies. 
Like Iris' bow, down darts the painted clue, 
Starr'd, striped, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue, 
Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new. 



THE THEATRE. 169 

George Green below, with palpitating hand, 
Loops the last 'kerchief to the beaver's band — 
Upsoars the prize ! The youth, with joy unfeign'd, 
Regain'd the felt, and felt what he regain'd ; 
While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat 
Made a low bow, and touch'd the ransom'd hat. 



" < The Theatre/ by the Key. George Crabbe, we rather 
think, is the best piece in the collection. It is an exquisite 
and most masterly imitation, not only of the peculiar style, 
but of the taste, temper, and manner of description of that most 
original author j and can hardly be said to be in any respect a 
caricature of that style or manner — except in the excessive 
profusion of puns and verbal jingles — which, though un- 
doubtedly to be ranked among his characteristics, are never so 
thick sown in his original work, as in this admirable imita- 
tion. It does not aim, of course, at any shadow of his pathos 
or moral sublimity, but seems to us to be a singularly faithful 
copy of his passages of mere description." — Edinburgh Review. 



TO THE MANAGING COMMITTEE OF THE NEW 
DRTJRY-LANE THEATRE. 1 



Gentlemen, 
Happening to be wool-gathering at the foot of Mount 
Parnassus, I was suddenly seized with a violent tra- 
vestie in the head. The first symptoms I felt were 
several triple rhymes floating about my brain, accom- 
panied by a singing in my throat, which quickly 
communicated itself to the ears of every body about 
me, and made me a burthen to my friends and a 
torment to Doctor Apollo ; three of whose favourite 

1 " We conie next to three ludicrous parodies — of the story 
of The Stranger, of George Barnwell, and of the dagger-scene 
in JIacbeth, under the signature of Mornus Medlar. They are 
as good, we think, as that sort of thing can be, and remind us 
of the happier efforts of Colman, whose less successful fool- 
eries are professedly copied in the last piece in the volume." — 
EdLJihur%h Review. 



TO THE MANAGING COMMITTEE, ETC. 171 

servants — that is to say, Macbeth, his butcher ; Mrs. 
Haller, his cook ; and George Barnwell, his book- 
keeper — I waylaid in one of my fits of insanity, and 
mauled after a very frightful fashion. In this woeful 
crisis, I accidentally heard of your invaluable New 
Patent Hissing Pit, which cures every disorder incident 
to Grub Street. I send you inclosed a more detailed 
specimen of my case : if you could mould it into the 
shape of an address, to be said or sung on the first 
night of your performance, I have no doubt that I 
should feel the immediate effects of your invaluable 
New Patent Hissing Pit, of which they tell me one 
hiss is a dose. 

I am, &c. 

Momus Medlar. 



CASE, No. I. 
MACBETH. 



[Enter Macbeth in a red nightcap. Pag-e foUoning with a torch.'] 

Go, boy, and thy good mistress tell 

(She knows that my purpose is cruel), 
I 'd thank her to tingle her bell 

As soon as she 's heated my gruel. 
Go, get thee to bed and repose — 

To sit up so late is a scandal ; 
But ere you have ta'en off your clothes, 

Be sure that you put out that candle. 

Bi fol de rol tol de rol lol. 

My stars, in the air here 's a knife ! — 

I 'm sure it can not be a hum ; 
I '11 catch at the handle, add's life ! 

And then I shall not cut my thumb. 



MACBETH TRAVESTIE. 173 

I 've got him ! — no, at him again ! 

Come, come, I 'm not fond of these jokes ; 
This must be some blade of the brain — 

Those witches are given to hoax. 

I 've one in my pocket, I know, 

My wife left on purpose behind her ; 
She bought this of Teddy-high-ho, 

The poor Caledonian grinder. 
I see thee again ! o'er thy middle 

Large drops of red blood now are spill'd, 
Just as much as to say, diddle diddle, 

Good Duncan, pray come and be kill'd. 

It leads to his chamber, I swear ; 

I tremble and quake every joint — 
No dog at the scent of a hare 

Ever yet made a cleverer point. 
Ah, no ! 't was a dagger of straw — 

Give me blinkers, to save me from starting ; 
The knife that I thought that I saw 

Was nought but my eye, Betty Martin. 



174 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

Now o'er this terrestrial hive 

A life paralytic is spread ; 
For while the one half is alive, 

The other is sleepy and dead. 
King Duncan, in grand majesty, 

Has got my state -bed for a snooze ; 
I 've lent him my slippers, so I 

May certainly stand in his shoes. 

Blow softly, ye murmuring gales ! 

Ye feet, rouse no echo in walking ! 
For though a dead man tells no tales, 

Dead walls are much given to talking. 
This knife shall be in at the death — 

I '11 stick him, then off safely get ! 
Cries the world, this could not be Macbeth, 

For he 'd ne'er stick at any thing yet. 

Hark, hark ! 't is the signal, by goles ! 

It sounds like a funeral knell ; 
O, hear it not, Duncan ! it tolls 

To call thee to heaven or hell. 



MACBETH TRAVESTIE. 175 

Or if you to heaven won't fly, 

But rather prefer Pluto's ether, 
Only wait a few years till I die, 

And we '11 go to the devil together. 

Ri fol de rol, &c. 



CASE, No. II. 
THE STRANGER. 



Who has e'er been at Drury must needs know the 

Stranger, 
A wailing old Methodist, gloomy and wan, 
A husband suspicious — his wife acted Ranger, 
She took to her heels, and left poor Hypocon. 
Her martial gallant swore that truth was a libel, 
That marriage was thraldom, elopement no sin ; 
Quoth she, I remember the words of my Bible — 
My spouse is a Stranger, and I '11 take him in. 
With my sentimentalibus lachrymse roar'em, 
And pathos and bathos delightful to see ; 
And chop and change ribs, a-la-mode Germanorum, 
And high diddle ho diddle, pop tweedle dee. 



STRANGER TRAVESTIE. 177 

• 

To keep up her dignity no longer rich enough, 
Where was her plate ? — why, 'twas laid on the shelf; 
Her land fuller's earth, and her great riches kitchen- 
stuff- 
Dressing the dinner instead of herself. 
No longer permitted in diamonds to sparkle, 
Now plain Mrs. Haller, of servants the dread, 
With a heart full of grief, and a pan full of charcoal, 
She lighted the company up to their bed. 

Incensed at her flight, her poor Hubby in dudgeon 
Roam'd after his rib in a gig and a pout, 
Till, tired with his journey, the peevish curmudgeon 
Sat down and blubber'd just like a church-spout. 
One day, on a bench as dejected and sad he laid, 
Hearing a squash, he cried, Damn it, what 's that ? 
'T was a child of the count's, in whose service lived 

Adelaide, 
Soused in the river, and squall'd like a cat. 

Having drawn his young excellence up to the bank, it 
Appear'd that himself was all dripping, I swear ; 
12 



178 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

No wonder he soon became dry as a blanket, 
Exposed as he was to the count's son and heir. 
Dear sir, quoth the count, in reward of your valour, 
To shew that my gratitude is not mere talk, 
You shall eat a beefsteak with my cook, Mrs. Haller, 
Cut from the rump with her own knife and fork. 

Behold, now the count gave the Stranger a dinner, 
With gunpowder-tea, which you know brings a ball, 
And, thin as he was, that he might not grow thinner, 
He made of the Stranger no stranger at all. 
At dinner fair Adelaide brought up a chicken — 
A bird that she never had met with before ; 
But, seeing him, scream'd, and was carried off kicking, 
And he bang'd his nob 'gainst the opposite door. 

To finish my tale without roundaboutation, 
Young master and missee besieged their papa ; 
They sung a quartetto in grand blubberation — 
The Stranger cried, Oh ! Mrs. Haller cried, Ah ! 
Though pathos and sentiment largely are dealt in, 
I have no good moral to give in exchange ; 



STRANGER TRAVESTIE. 179 

For though she, as a cook, might be given to melting, 
The Stranger's behaviour was certainly strange. 
With his sentimentalibus lachrymse roar' em, 
And pathos and bathos delightful to see, 
And chop and change ribs, a-la-mode Germanorum, 
And high diddle ho diddle, pop tweedle dee. 



CASE, No. III. 
GEORGE BARNWELL. 



George Barnwell stood at the shop-door, 
A customer hoping to find, sir ; 
His apron was hanging before, - 
But the tail of his coat was behind, sir. 
A lady, so painted and smart, 
Cried, Sir, I 've exhausted my stock o' late ; 
I 've got nothing left but a groat — 
Could you give me four penn'orth of chocolate ? 

Rum ti, &c. 

Her face was rouged up to the eyes, 
Which made her look prouder and prouder ; 
His hair stood on end with surprise, 
And hers with pomatum and powder. 



GEORGE BARNWELL TRAVESTIE. 181 

The business was soon understood ; 
The lady, who wish'd to be more rich, 
Cries, Sweet sir, my name is Milwood, 
And I lodge at the Gunner's in Shoreditch. 

Rum ti, &c. 



Now nightly he stole out, good lack ! 
And into her lodging would pop, sir ; 
And often forgot to come back, 
Leaving master to set up the shop, sir. 
Her beauty his wits did bereave — 
Determined to be quite the crack O, 
He lounged at the Adam and Eve, 
And calPd for his gin and tobacco. 

Rum ti, &c. 



And now — for the truth must be told, 
Though none of a 'prentice should speak ill • 
He stole from the till all the gold, 
And ate the lump -sugar and treacle. 



182 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

In vain did his master exclaim, 
Dear George, don't engage with that dragon ; 
She '11 lead you to sorrow and shame, 
And leave you the devil a rag on 

Your rum ti, &c. 



In vain he entreats and implores 
The weak and incurable ninny, 
So kicks him at last out of doors, 
And Georgy soon spends his last guinea. 
His uncle, whose generous purse 
Had often relieved him, as I know, 
Now finding him grow worse and worse, 
Refused to come down with the rhino. 

Rum ti, &c. 



Cried Mil wood, whose cruel heart's core 
Was so flinty that nothing could shock it, 
If ye mean to come here any more, 
Pray come with more cash in your pocket ; 



GEORGE BARNWELL TRAVESTIE. 183 

Make Nunky surrender his dibs, 
Rub his pate with a pair of lead towels, 
Or stick a knife into his ribs — 
I '11 warrant he '11 then shew some bowels. 

Rum ti, &c. 



A pistol he got from his love — 
'T was loaded with powder and bullet ; 
He trudged off to Camber well Grove, 
But wanted the courage to pull it. 
There 's Nunky as fat as a hog, 
While I am as lean as a lizard ; 
Here 's at you, you stingy old dog ! — 
And he whips a long knife in his gizzard. 

Rum ti, &c. 



All you who attend to my song, 

A terrible end of the farce shall see, 

If you join the inquisitive throng 

That follow'd poor George to the Marshalsea. 



184 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

If Mil wood were here, dash my wigs, 
Quoth he, I would pummel and lam her well ; 
Had I stuck to my pruins and figs, 
I ne'er had stuck Nunky at Camberwell. 

Rum ti, &c. 

Their bodies were never cut down ; 
For granny relates with amazement, 
A witch bore 'em over the town, 
And hung them on Thorowgood's casement. 
The neighbours, I 've heard the folks say, 
The miracle noisily brag on ; 
And the shop is, to this very day, 
The sign of the George and the Dragon. 

Rum ti, &c. 



PUNCH'S APOTHEOSIS. 

BY T. H.i 

*_ 

* Rhymes the rudders are of verses, 
With which, like ships, they steer their courses." 

HUDIBRAS. 



Scene draws, and discovers Punch on a throne, surrounded by Lear, 
Laby Macbeth, Macbeth, Othello, George Barnwell, 
Hamlet, Ghost, Macheath, Juliet, Friar, Apothecary, 
Romeo, and Falstaff. — Punch descends, and addresses them 
in the following 

RECITATIVE. 

As manager of horses Mr. Merry man is, 

So I with you am master of the ceremonies — 

1 Theodore Hook, at that time a very young man, and the 
companion of the annotator in many wild frolics. The clever- 
ness of his subsequent prose compositions has cast his early 
stage songs into oblivion. This parody was, in the second 
edition, transferred from Colman to Hook. 



186 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

These grand rejoicings. Let me see, how name ye 

'em ? — 
Oh, in Greek lingo 'tis E-pi-thalamium. 
October's tenth it is : toss up each hat to-day, 
And celebrate with shouts our opening Saturday ! 
On this great night 't is settled by our manager, 
That we, to please great Johnny Bull, should plan a 

jeer, 
Dance a bang-up theatrical cotillion, 
And put on tuneful Pegasus a pillion ; 
That every soul, whether or not a cough he has, 
May kick like Harlequin, and sing like Orpheus. 
So come, ye pupils of Sir John Gallini, 1 
Spin up a tetotum like Angiolini ; 2 
That John and Mrs. Bull, from ale and tea-houses, 
May shout huzza for Punch's Apotheosis ! 

They dance and sing. 
Air — " Sure such a day." — Tom Thumb. 

1 Then Director of the Opera House. 

2 At that time the chief dancer at this establishment. 



punch's apotheosis. 187 

LEAR. 

Dance, Regan ! dance, with Cordelia and Goneril — 

Down the middle, up again, pousette, and cross ; 

Stop, Cordelia ! do not tread upon her heel, 

Regan feeds on coltsfoot, and kicks like a horse. 

See, she twists her mutton fists like Molyneux or Beel- 
zebub, 

And Mother's clack, who pats her back, is louder far 
than hell's hubbub. 

They tweak my nose, and round it goes — I fear they'll 
break the ridge of it, 

Or leave it all just like Vauxhall, with only half the 
bridge of it. 1 

OMNES. 

Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holyday, 
Glory to Tomfoolery, huzza ! huzza ! 

LADY MACBETH. 

I kilPd the king ; my husband is a heavy dunce ; 
He left the grooms unmassacred, then massacred the 
stud. 

1 Vauxhall Bridge then, like the Thames Tunnel at present, 
stood suspended in the middle of that river. 



1S8 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

One loves long gloves ; for mittens, like king's evi- 
dence, 
Let truth with the fingers out, and won't hide blood. 

MACBETH. 

When spoonys on two knees implore the aid of sor- 
cery, 

To suit their wicked purposes they quickly put the 
laws awry ; 

With Adam I in wife may vie, for none could ,tell the 
use of her, 

Except to cheapen golden pippins hawk'd about by 
Lucifer. 

0MNES. 

Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holyday, 
Glory to Tomfoolery, huzza ! huzza ! 

OTHELLO. 

Wife, come to life, forgive what your black lover did, 
Spit the feathers from your mouth, and munch roast 

beef; 
Iago he may go and be toss'd in the coverlid 
That smother'd you, because you pawn'd my hand- 
kerchief. 



punch's apotheosis. 189 

george barnwell. 

Why, neger, so eager about your rib immaculate ? 

Milwood shews for hanging us they 've got an ugly 
knack o' late ; 

If on beauty 'stead of duty but one peeper bent he 
sees, 

Satan waits with Dolly baits to hook in us appren- 
tices. 

OMNES. 

Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holyday, 
Glory to Tomfoolery, huzza ! huzza ! 

HAMLET. 

I 'm Hamlet in camlet, my ap and perihelia 

The moon can fix, which lunatics makes sharp or flat. 

I stuck by ill luck, enamour' d of Ophelia, 

Old Polony like a sausage, and exclaim'd, " Eat, rat ! " 

GHOST. 

Let Gertrude sup the poison'd cup — no more I '11 be 

an actor in 
Such sorry food, but drink home-brew'd of Whitbread's 

manufacturing. 



190 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 

MACHEATH. 

I '11 Polly it, and folly it, and dance it quite the 

dandy O ; 
But as for tunes, I have but one, and that is Drops of 

Brandy O. 

OMNES. 

Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holy day, 
Glory to Tomfoolery, huzza ! huzza ! 

JULIET. 

I 'm Juliet Capulet, who took a dose of hellebore — 
A hell-of-a-bore I found it to put on a pall. 

FRIAR. 

And I am the friar, who so corpulent a belly bore. 

APOTHECARY. 

And that is why poor skinny I have none at all. 

ROMEO. 

I 'm the resurrection-man, of buried bodies amorous. 

FALSTAFF. 

I 'm fagg'd to death, and out of breath, and am for 
quiet clamorous ; 



191 



For though my paunch is round and stanch, I ne'er 

begin to feel it ere I 
Feel that I have no stomach left for entertainment 

military. 

OMKES. 

Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holyday, 
Glory to Tomfoolery, huzza ! huzza ! 

[Exeunt dancing. 



THE END. 



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